The first national Skinhead convention is expected to gather this week on an isolated compound near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s 100th birthday.
The gathering this weekend is a project of the “Rev.” Richard Butler, leader of the Aryan Nations Church of Jesus Christ-Christian.
A former Jesse Jackson delegate at the Democratic National Convention, Lisa Anderson, will lead a countermarch Thursday, endorsed by Jackson, that is expected to attract 20,000 and double Coeur d’Alene’s population for the event.
Irwin Suall, fact-finding director of the ADL, said the ADL will be monitoring the Skinhead gathering. “It’s high up on our agenda.” He believes an estimated 100 Skinheads may show.
In America, said Suall, there are roughly 3,000 Skinheads, active in 30 states. They also exist in Western and Eastern Europe — a Hungarian news magazine portrayed them on their cover last July, and they have attacked churches and citizens in East Germany — and are reported also in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
“The Skinhead phenomenon is a very troubling phenomenon,” said Suall, “mainly because it involves new young people, many as young as 14 or 15, inculcated into anti-Semitism — a new generation of active haters.”
Skinheads have been increasingly infused into the extreme right-wing “Christian Identity” movement in the last couple of years, adding the hatred and violence of the shaven-headed youth to a “racialist” belief system cum “religion.”
That religion counts Jews as “impostors, children of Satan” and blacks as “pre-Adamic.”
Coeur d’Alene is a quiet resort town that was rocked by racist bombings three year ago. A regional human rights organization, the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, was subsequently formed.
Now, the group is asking local citizens to tie orange ribbons to every tree, bush and fence.
Klanwatch, a civil rights group in Montgomery, Ala., released a report on the Skinheads in February blaming them for last year’s worst racist attacks, “the most alarming development of 1988.”
Klanwatch, the Anti-Defamation League and the Center for Democratic Renewal all report that the Skinheads are growing in numbers.
In Portland, four separate Skinhead gangs operate, and police there reported at least 40 serious crimes in 1988 committed by Skinheads, including murder.
In Seattle, the American Front Skinheads sent representatives to a memorial rally for a murdered member of The Order, the right-wing group involved in the killing of Denver Jewish talk-show host Alan Berg.
Suall said the ADL has begun to sponsor conferences in schools, attended by school authorities, police and law enforcement officials and community leaders.
“We’re finding a trend, that Skinheads are increasingly sending organizers out to the schools, particularly to schools where there is racial conflict.”
ADL will publish a new survey of Skinheads in about six weeks.
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