Pennsylvania city tense during white supremacy gathering
January 12, 2002 Posted: 8:24 PM EST (0124 GMT)
Police in riot gear held protestors at bay while white supremacists met inside a library.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
YORK, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Several dozen police officers in riot gear kept demonstrators at bay on Saturday as white supremacists gathered to bring their message of racial segregation to a city still feeling the lingering effects of deadly race riots more than 30 years ago.
Only a few white supremacists were on hand by midmorning, with more expected to arrive for a meeting aimed at recruiting new members and advocating an end to immigration.
Witnesses reported a clash between the white supremacists and demonstrators, although police did not confirm it.
Matthew Hale, the leader of the white supremacist group World Church of the Creator, has organized a meeting Saturday at which he planned to recruit new members and advocate for an end to immigration.
Representatives of Hale's organization and three other white supremacist groups -- the National Socialist Movement, the Aryan Nation and the National Alliance -- were expected to attend.
Hale's scheduled speech has stoked fears of violence and anxiety over York's ability to withstand such a divisive message.
Two Hale appearances in Illinois in 2000 ended in violence, with people arrested after each melee. Several anti-racist groups known for provoking fights with white supremacists were also expected in York on Saturday.
Cathy Ash, the director of the city's human relations commission, thought it was logical to try to talk Hale out of convening the meeting. She said she was shocked by the e-mail reply she received earlier this month.
"I won't repeat the words he used about the difficulties in York and whose fault they were," Ash said.
Hale, in a telephone interview Thursday from his home East Peoria, Illinois, where his group is based, elaborated on his response to Ash and his reasons for coming to York.
"I told her that people like her that wish to integrate the country are trying to destroy the country," he said.
Since police began making arrests over the summer in York's 1969 race riots, former Mayor Charlie Robertson and eight other white men have been charged with murdering a black woman visiting from South Carolina. Also, two black men are charged with murdering a white York policeman.
Hale said he specifically picked York for his appearance because of its high profile in race relations and because Pennsylvania has been a hotbed of racial division.
On Friday, the windows of various downtown businesses and offices in York, a racially mixed town of 41,000 in central Pennsylvania, displayed posters and banners promoting diversity.
State, city and federal authorities were to provide security Saturday, including blocking off several streets around the library where Hale is making his speech. They also planned to frisk for weapons and escort Hale in and out of the building, police said.
A library conference room was reserved in November by Michael Cook, director of the World Church's York-area chapter, who told the library that his "church" would be meeting there, officials said. It was only this month that library officials found out that this church was actually a white supremacist group.
Library officials researched the legality of canceling the event and decided that such an action would not hold up.
That the event was allowed evoked a sense of betrayal from some York residents and a fear that race relations could suffer.
"We thought it was just a joke at first," said black 12-year-old Na'Kwai DeShields, waiting in the rain for the library to open Friday. "And we thought people would try to keep them from coming."
Many residents grudgingly acknowledged Hale's right to express his views. But others were less accommodating.
"(The library) made the easy choice, but the wrong choice," said the Rev. David McCullough of the predominantly white Asbury United Methodist church, near the library. "There's a time to say 'No."'
Mark Potok, who tracks hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said such organizations have been cooperating with each other to a greater degree since September 11, often targeting places like York that are weathering racial strife.
McCullough said that, while the matter can't be ignored, he expected that the community would emerge stronger.
"These events bring out the worst in people," he said. "But they also bring out the best in people."