‘Not in our town’

Columbia residents want the National Socialist Movement to leave the city disappointed after its planned march Saturday.

Business owners on the route of the neo-Nazi group’s demonstration will line their windows with signs reading, “NO HATE IN OUR TOWN.” Meanwhile, others plan to gather for a celebration at Douglass Park during the march to counter the protest and promote tolerance.

Community leaders and concerned residents gathered at St. Paul A.M.E. Church on Tuesday night to finalize plans for keeping young people away from the march.

The Missouri chapter of the National Socialist Movement plans to march in neo-Nazi regalia near the MU campus on a route bounded by Elm Street, Hitt Street, University Avenue and Ninth Street at any time from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday.

Community groups are planning the following responses to the march:

• A gathering will be held in Douglass Park from noon to 5 p.m. There will be a D.J., open-mic time, games, food and performances.
• Columbia school teachers will talk to kids during social studies hours Friday about how to deal with hate and why to avoid the march.
• ParentLink, a parenting service group, will distribute flyers with suggestions about how parents can talk to their kids about hate.
• The Jewish Student Organization has started a Web site, tolerance.homestead.com, where residents can pledge money for every minute the National Socialist Movement marches. Residents had already pledged more than $1,000 Tuesday night.
• The Human Rights Commission will distribute 500 “Not In Our Town” buttons. Other groups plan to distribute T-shirts promoting tolerance.
• Saturday will be Tolerance Day, and the City Council might consider changing street names on the route to “Freedom Way” or other names.

Michael Middleton, MU deputy chancellor, said that the university has not finalized events for Saturday, but is working to find open venues for alternative activities.

“The best thing that could happen is for downtown Columbia to be a ghost town except for a few ignorant people talking to themselves,” Middleton said.

Mary Ratliff, president of Missouri chapter of the NAACP, said that she disagrees with some of the suggestions at Tuesday’s meeting, but will have to consult with other members of her organization before deciding how to respond to the march. At a meeting at the Columbia Police Department on Monday, Ratliff suggested a visible counter demonstration at the Boone County Courthouse steps. Some residents voiced concerns that the demonstration would be too close to the march and endanger the safety of the counter-protestors.

The police department is urging the community to ignore the protest because the intent of the neo-Nazi group is to incite violence from counter-protestors, Capt. Tom Dresner said. Dresner said the group members will probably not carry weapons or attack members of the community during the protest. But, he said, many of the members have criminal records for assault.

The meeting highlighted a sense of mistrust between police and the community.

Dresner tried to assure the audience that if police arrest counter-protestors at the march, it is not evidence of the police siding with the neo-Nazi group.

“One of the reasons we are here is because there needs to be trust,” Dresner said. “I know that trust has not always existed.”

Dresner said he knows police will be scrutinized for their conduct during the march and that a scene of police arresting a counter-protestor will conjure up memories of past police misconduct in American history.

The National Socialist Movement filed for a permit Feb. 15. It was approved Feb. 20, but police did not notify community leaders about the march until Feb. 28.

Dresner said it was an oversight because the captain who approved the permit went on vacation.

First Ward Councilwoman Almeta Crayton urged community leaders to continue encouraging tolerance long after the National Socialist Movement is gone.

“I ask you to come here on Sunday and Monday next week when the ugly people are gone and solve the problem down here,” Crayton said. “These kids are upset, they’re angry and the only time they see you is when there’s a crisis? That’s wrong.”