white supremacist groups begin to mobilize in response to Jena rally
Howard Witt now reports on white supremacist and neo-nazi groups who are forming a response to last Thursday's rally in Jena. Click here to see Mr. Witt's entire story. A few excerpts from Tuesday's Tribune:
* No sooner did tens of thousands of African-American demonstrators depart the racially tense town of Jena, La., last week after protesting perceived injustices than white supremacists flooded in behind them.
* First a neo-Nazi Web site posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six black teenagers and their families at the center of the Jena 6 case and urged followers to find them and "drag them out of the house," prompting an investigation by the FBI.
* David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, last week announced his support for Jena's white residents, who voted overwhelmingly for him when he ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor in 1991.
* "There is a major white supremacist backlash building," said Mark Potok, a hate-group expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group in Montgomery, Ala. "I also think it's more widespread than may be obvious to most people. It's not only neo-nazis and Klansmen-you expect this kind of reaction from them."
* McMillin (mayor of Jena) has insisted that his town is being unfairly portrayed as racist-an assertion the mayor repeated in an interview with Richard Barrett, the leader of the Nationalist Movement, a white supremacist group based in Learned, Miss., who asked McMillan to "set aside some place for those opposing the colored folks."
PLEASE, PLEASE read Mr. Witt's article in it's entirety.
