Wednesday, August 25, 1999
Hate group targets Anderson
Anti-Semitic, racist material left on driveways
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Bart Steever of Anderson Township was personally sickened when a hate group dropped an anti-Semitic and racist booklet on his driveway.
“It's unsettling, shocking, to think they've driven by your house,” he said Tuesday.
His Lanette Drive home was one of hundreds in suburban Anderson targeted in the past two weeks by local members of a national white-separatist group. Residents think as many as 2,000 households received the material in at least two neighborhoods — on and around Lanette Drive and in the 1,000-home Summit Estates subdivision near Clough Pike and Eight Mile Road.
The Hamilton County Sheriff's Department has received six calls about the literature. Other residents have called Anderson Township government offices to complain.
“People wanted the police to know,” department spokesmanSteve Barnett said Tuesday. “The leaflets talk about being informative. They're not threatening anyone. So they're protected by the First Amendment.”
National movement
The 32-page booklets are published by the Illinois-based World Church of the Creator, to which Benjamin Nathaniel Smith once belonged. Mr. Smith, 21, a white supremacist, killed two and wounded at least seven other people — all minorities — in a shooting spree that began July 2 in the Chicago area and ended July 4 when he shot himself.
Literature from the World Church, thought by watchdog organizations to be the country's fastest-growing hate group, was also found in the home of two brothers charged in connection with the killing of a gay couple in California.
Cincinnati branch
Titled “FACTS That the Government and the Media Don't Want You To Know,” the booklets were delivered to Anderson Township homes overnight Sunday. They include a picture of the Rev. Matt Hale, leader of the national organization, based in East Peoria, Ill., and a listing of its 45 affiliates. It is not a religious organization. Its
members neither pray nor worship.
The World Church has a Cincinnati branch, which lists its mailing address as a post office box in Anderson Township. It was organized in October by the Rev. Matt Buschbacher, who lives near Mariemont, and has five members.
Efforts to reach him this week were unsuccessful, but in an interview with The Cincinnati Enquirer in July he said the organization does not condone illegal activity or the violence employed by Mr. Smith.
However, he said, the World Church of the Creator believes in a coming race war.
A recruiting effort
“I never knew Benjamin Smith,” the Rev. Mr. Buschbacher said, “but I have heard, though, he was a dedicated activist for our racial cause.
“Our church is based on a high level of pride. We have pride in our race, heritage and culture and will do anything to prevent it from being destroyed. White Man is the creator, the creator of civilizations.”
He said World Church members and supporters are a mix of professionals and laborers, who meet to discuss current events and issues. They plan to distribute pamphlets, newspaper clippings and bumper stickers to people between ages 18 and 30 in areas with small minority populations.
The Rev. Mr. Buschbacher, ordained after he read two books on white supremacy, wrote an essay and sent a copy of his driver's license to World Church headquarters, also said the group distributes literature in areas where it hopes to recruit members.
Ideal target
Russ Jackson, president of the Anderson Township Board of Trustees, said Tuesday that he can only surmise why the World Church targeted Anderson.
First is the population. Anderson is 98 percent white. Fewer than 1 percent of its 37,000 residents are African-American, according to Claritas Inc., a Virginia-based demographics research company.
Then there was an incident in November when the Yarger Drive home of a Jewish family was spray-painted with swastikas and other graffiti. And this year, the Forest Hills School Board voted to keep the nickname Redskins for Anderson High School athletic teams, overriding a protest by American Indian groups.
“Taken together, these might have inaccurately led these people to believe we are intolerant,” Mr. Jackson said Tuesday. “But knowing the community, people are offended by this (hate material).”
"It's terrible'
Ann Simon, 62, who lives on Lanette Drive, was disgusted by the booklet. She saw the orange plastic wrapper on her driveway Monday morning. Because she didn't recognize it as her grocery's advertising circular, she threw it in the garbage without opening it. And when she learned what it was, she was glad she had.
“It's terrible. It's ridiculous,” Ms. Simon said.
Don Elliott, a retiree who lives in Summit Estates, was also offended by the World Church's writings. He notified the police and wanted to speak out against the group.
“You have to say something, or these people think you agree with them,” he said.
The World Church has 45 chapters and 3,000 members nationwide.
Jews "security-minded'
In spite of its relatively small membership, it is taken seriously, a local Jewish leader says, given the amount of high-profile, anti-Semitic violence this summer.
In June, three synagogues were burned in Sacramento, Calif. In July, Mr. Smith went on his shooting rampage in Illinois and Indiana. And earlier this month, an Aryan Nation member, Buford O. Furrow, is accused of shooting and wounding five people in a Jewish community center in the San Fernando Valley.
“It's a concern,” said Michael Rapp, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati.
The Jewish Federation held a seminar on security for Jewish organizations and agencies during the weekend.
“We've been security-minded for some time,” Mr. Rapp said Monday. “We take them seriously and will respond accordingly. We will take no chances.
“What we're talking about is we're not going to let the bigots and haters close down our community.”
First Amendment issue
Mr. Rapp has read the World Church booklet and said it is written to appeal to an educated audience.
“They (the World Church) are educated, but they're not clever,” he said. “But these are not your gutter anti-Semites.”
In terms of educational attainment and income, Anderson Township is the type of neighborhood the World Church wants to reach.
More than a quarter of all Anderson residents has completed four or more years of college, and 88 percent of its employed residents are white-collar professionals. Its median household income of $59,000 is also higher than the Tristate as a whole, at $42,000.
The World Church booklet says Jews are trying to take over the media and blames Jews for bringing African slaves to the United States. The booklet also contains articles titled “The Screaming Numbers of Black On White Crime” and “The Biological Differences Between The Races.”
“The First Amendment protects all Americans' freedom of speech, even to speak rubbish,” said Johnathan Holifield, a Cincinnati civil rights lawyer and member of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“While the NAACP does not have a huge constituency in Anderson Township, we believe the good people of Anderson Township, like other areas of Greater Cincinnati, will denounce this.”
Churches unite
In January, at least 18 Anderson-area churches jointly denounced bigotry in response to the Yarger Drive incident involving the Jewish family. Four former Anderson High School students, ages 19 and 20, were charged with criminal damaging and ethnic intimidation.
Lanette Drive resident Bart Steever is also associate minister of the Mount Washington Church of Christ.
Both as a minister and 11-year Anderson homeowner, he wanted to speak out against the World Church and other groups that preach racial and ethnic hatred.
“I don't know anyone in Anderson Township who would be at all sympathetic with this group,” he said. “My experience is that this is an open-minded, tolerant community. Shock and outrage would be the response I'd expect.”
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