TOLERANCE-RELATED CONTROVERSIES IN MONTANA
TUESDAY, AUGUST 17TH, 2010
2001
The World Church of the Creator honors several activists with its “Award of Honor.” The recipients included Dan Hasett of Missoula and Slim Deardorff of Superior. The award is given to “Creators” who engage in “great activism in the service of the Church and the Race.”
2002
Former Ku Klux Klan member John Abarr files as a Republican legislative candidate in Great Falls. It’s not the first time the former Klan recruiter has latched onto the GOP. He and his associate, Roger Roots, had been members of MSU-Billings’ Young Republicans in 1994. The group publicly supported Billings anti-Semite Red Beckman.
2003
The Aryan Nations holds its summer World Congress in northern Idaho, with about 80 people attending the gathering. Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler tells the press that the event is a “prelude to the awakening of the White race.” They pray for “an eventual ethnic cleansing” of Jews and people of color.
2005
Bozeman resident Kevin McGuire, a member of the National Alliance, runs for a position on the Bozeman public school board. His bid for the seat fails. However, he receives 157 votes and claims his bid increased interest in the National Alliance.
2006
Efforts by a white supremacist group to ramp up activism in Montana shows signs of paying off. The National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi organization, establishes contact points in Billings, Butte and Libby.
2006
Butte’s Shawn Stuart files to run for the state Legislature as a Republican. He is the Montana contact for the National Socialist Movement, described as “America’s Nazi Party.” The movement calls for a “union of all whites into a greater America.”
2007
Kalispell white nationalists and teen singers Lamb and Lynx Gaede, who together comprise “Prussian Blue,” make national news for their separatist music. They say their music is intended for white people, played with the hope that fellow whites understand “that love for one’s race is a beautiful gift we should celebrate.”