Nazis and Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Brotherhood, Oh, My!

Yes, those are swastikas on the flags you see in that photo. This weekend, the Nazi Socialist Movement, the largest neo-Nazi organization in the country, came to my hometown, Kansas City, for a national gathering to celebrate the 75^th anniversary of Kristallnacht with their pals the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Brotherhood, and Satan’s Saints, a white supremacist motorcycle gang.

I’m a lifelong activist. The FBI has a file on me from the J.Edgar Hoover days (which puts me in very good company). I’ve been teargassed in antiwar protests and had rotten tomatoes and eggs thrown at me in civil rights marches. I’ve put in my time at trying to make this a decent country for everyone, and as lupus, fibromyalgia, and severe asthma have taken a toll on me and left me needing a cane, I had decided that I was done with going out into the streets to protest or demonstrate. I figured I’d earned my time to sit peacefully at home and finish the book for which I have an impending deadline. 

Then the Nazis announced that they were coming to Kansas City. They came to KC in 2007 to celebrate Hitler’s birthday and paraded around in Nazi uniforms. I thought surely others would stand against them and no one did. So this weekend saw me downtown at City Hall facing the Jackson County Courthouse where the Nazis, KKK, and fellow travelers were supposed to bring over a thousand jackbooted thugs to parade around to celebrate the night their German forebears destroyed Jewish shops, killed many Jews, and started rounding up them (and many other minority groups) for concentration camps to begin Hitler’s Final Solution.

The same politicos who rolled out the red carpet for these Nazis, allowing them all kinds of things that we counter-ralliers were not allowed—bullhorns, ultra-large stereo speakers, microphone stands, and much more when we weren’t even allowed water bottles or purses to carry our medicine (I had to make use of Ben’s pockets for mine)—tried to keep us from protesting against them, and when they couldn’t , organized another rally miles away, effectively dividing the forces of reason for political purposes. So reluctantly, after an exhausting week of work and events every night for my husband’s job, we drove downtown early to set up for one more stand against hate.

Even with the politicians putting pressure on organizations to attend their rally safely miles away, seven hundred people arrived to stand up against the Nazis—ministers, schoolteachers, college and high school students, secretaries, longtime civil rights activists, young veterans of the Occupy movement, active-duty soldiers, grandmothers with their grandchildren, fiery young anarchists, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, white, African American, Latino, American Indian, and a few women in hijabs. What was especially gratifying to me was that the vast majority were young people.

What was not gratifying was that the police were aimed at us and apparently had orders to threaten us with teargas and pepper spray. Fortunately, none was used against us, but that’s why in some photos you will see folks with bandannas or handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses. These were the ones who’d been involved with the Occupy movement and had recent experience of being sprayed with these toxic substances. Also, a little disconcerting was the militarized appearance of the police. About six clearly marked observers for the Department of Justice circulated among us—and may have been the only reason that our peaceful gathering was not attacked by the police, who paid little attention to the Nazis, et al. 

The Nazis and white supremacists only managed to field about three dozen people instead of the thousand-plus they had threatened. When asked later by the press about the low turnout, they said that many turned back, afraid of the publicity that our counter rally had drawn and afraid that they might lose their jobs if they were publicly seen. Some dismissed that as fake excuses, but I’ve seen the membership numbers that researchers have compiled for these organizations, and I know they could easily field that many people. Therefore, I count our protest a success since it inhibited more from coming out in public.

The rhetoric was as awful as you might expect. Talk of putting all but Aryans into “subservience.” Talk of the fun they have arming with guns and going “hunting illegals” at the border, as if it were a sport. Talk of the “judaization” of America and the world and how they will “cleanse” it. But mostly it was the same rhetoric you can hear any day on talk radio or from the extremist politicians who have seized control of Congress. That was the eye-opener. They even played a recording from the 1980s of a deceased leader, and it was basically Tea Party rhetoric with some extra-nasty violence added. It underscored how far to the right our country has slid when the lines the Nazis have been spouting for decades have suddenly become the main themes of powerful elected politicians.

But the main takeaway of the day was the beautiful, diverse gathering who peacefully stood up against the haters and said, “No.” That and the heavy involvement of young people from conservatively dressed yuppie types to the heavily tattooed anarchists who placed themselves in the front lines, fully expecting teargas or pepper spray. I have had my days of depression and cynicism when I look at the way things are going, but I am newly optimistic after this glimpse of the upcoming generation, who, with all their differences, will still stand up and stand together against violence and hate.