Racist hate-group invades Kirkwood.

White supremacist organizations are becoming more vocal and more visible. A number of St. Louis County residents found this out in October when they held a candle light vigil in Kirkwood against concealed weapons.

The candlelight vigil was countered by a group toting National Alliance flyers and holding stenciled signs declaring, "Arming Our Citizenry Reduces Non-white Crime" and "The Problem Isn't Guns, The Problem Is Race."

"We parked our cars at the Kirkwood United Methodist Church for the vigil," said Terrance Barber of Kirkwood. "We saw this group carrying flyers around that ended up on our windshields. It was some pretty outrageous stuff, and the signs they carried had slogans straight out of this racist literature of the National Alliance."

Barber was among 20 members of Citizens for Sensible Public Policy who assembled Oct. 26 to protest the vote of state Sen. Michael Gibbons, R-Kirkwood, that overturned Gov. Bob Holden's veto of the bill allowing concealed weapons in the state of Missouri.

Barber said Gibbons voted against the will of his constituents on the gun issue, because he said residents voted overwhelmingly against the concealed weapons measure billed Proposition B in 1999. The vote in favor of concealed weapons by Gibbons has prompted a number of peaceful demonstrations and candlelight vigils by residents of his 15th senate district. The vigil on Oct. 26 was met by a counter-demonstration.

"The signs and literature these people were carrying in front of Gibbons' office was straight out of the racist National Alliance," said Barber. "This is paranoid stuff against blacks and Jews. I think these people are potentially dangerous.

"I don't blame Gibbons for these people showing up," added Barber. "But when you dance with the devil and become the concealed weapons poster child with your deciding vote, you can expect these kind of people to come out of the wood-work to support you. It would be good for Sen. Gibbons to come out and condemn this kind of hate."

Barber and Margaret Eaton of Webster Groves, another member of Citizens for Sensible Public Policy, supported Gibbons' opponent in the Nov. 2 election. Democrat Jeanne Kirkton lost the election to Gibbons.

"There were about 20-to-25 of us there with candles and brooms to sweep Gibbons out of office," Eaton said. "We were disappointed to find these racist signs about non-white crime. Our people were saying, 'This is in Kirkwood? These folks are in my town--my community?'"

Eaton said she thinks it is important to publicly condemn the kind of signs and literature that showed up in Kirkwood. She is concerned the presence of National Alliance sympathizers, handing out hate literature, will hurt the reputation of both Kirkwood and the state of Missouri.

"Are we now to be viewed as a state that supports this kind of racially tinted rhetoric--that we all feel we need guns because we're afraid of black people?" Eaton asked.

Gibbons appalled

For his part, Gibbons said he was appalled by the signs and the literature that appeared outside his office Oct. 26. He said he had "absolutely nothing" to do with their showing up, and he wants no association with them.

"When all this happened, I made a lot of phone calls to find out who in the heck these people are," said Gibbons. "We wondered if we were being set up. I even called Roger Wilson, the state Democratic Party chair, and asked him what this was all about and he said he had no idea.

"I later talked to a St. Louis County police major who was familiar with the group," added Gibbons. "He said they typically show up in situations where they think they can attract publicity--where they think they can get their racially charged messages out. The major said they had never done anything to warrant arrest here locally."

Gibbons said anyone who knows him is aware that he has worked to better race relations both as a local and as a state official. He said he wants "no association or link whatsoever with people who consider themselves white supremacists."

St. Louis area police departments have monitored a number of previous public demonstrations of the St. Louis chapter of the National Alliance. Some of those activities have been attended by members of the local Council of Conservative Citizens, which bills itself as a white advocacy organization.

Chesterfield police monitored a local Alliance activity in 2003 when members went door-to-door in that community handing out flyers favoring "a free, strong, proud white America."

Also in 2003, police kept an eye on what local National Alliance members called "an anti-immigration protest" in front of the International Institute in South St. Louis. Among other charitable activities, the Institute helps settle refugees who are relocated to St. Louis.

Hate literature

The hate literature, brought to Kirkwood by the group of pro-gun demonstrators Oct. 26, was authored by William L. Pierce. Pierce, the founder and hero of the National Alliance, died in July 2002, but his organization continues to grow.

Pierce is best known among the right-wing for his novel entitled, "The Turner Diaries," which predicts a war between the white and non-white races. The novel includes descriptions of mutilated Caucasians hanging on street corners after the war erupts. The corpses are hung with signs reading: "I defiled my race."

"The Turner Diaries" includes a detailed chapter on a truck bombing of FBI headquarters. Pierce's novel was one of Timothy McVeigh's favorite books, one he reportedly read over and over again before the Oklahoma City bombing, according to the study, "Waves of Rancor," by Robert L. Hilliard and Michael C. Keith.

In the National Alliance pamphlets distributed in Kirkwood, restrictions on guns are described as a Jewish conspiracy to disarm white America so that a "New World Order" can be imposed. Under this new order, white Americans must surrender national sovereignty, "permitting themselves to be 'equalized' with Chinese coolies and Mexican peons."

According to the pamphlets, crime and violence are on the increase, "because no one has the courage and honesty to discuss their real causes. ... Therefore, the stampede will continue until white Americans--that is, the ones who obey all the laws--have been completely disarmed."

The literature distributed in Kirkwood praises those who have defied gun laws, because compulsory registration of all firearms and firearm owners is simply a prelude to confiscation later.

The National Alliance tract concludes: "Keep your firearms out of sight, but within reach. The day will come for using them. The day for a great cleansing of this land will come. Keep your powder dry."

"Emboldened and visible"

"There was an enormous effort in this past election, from top to bottom, to make people feel threatened and fearful," said Barber of Citizens for Sensible Public Policy. "I think that in such an atmosphere, it makes these extreme self-defense types more emboldened and visible.

"These folks feel that they can go right out and label other people, who aren't like them, as lawbreakers and outsiders," added Barber. "If good people do not raise their voices and start to condemn this racism and extremism as unacceptable, then this kind of thinking is going to be normalized. It is going to be acceptable to intimidate and to be racist."

Karen Aroesty, who monitors hate groups in her work with the St. Louis chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, said St. Louis County has the largest cell of National Alliance members in the country.

"In the last 10 years there's been an enormous amount of growth," said Aroesty. "There's a more intellectual, middle-income class of racists. The Internet has played a role, since you can stay in your own home and buy materials and get involved with chat rooms, and no one necessarily has to know."

National Alliance members and sympathizers also have taken to the airwaves, locally and nationally. Aroesty cited the radio show of Frank Weltner on WGNU (920 AM) as a broadcast that has helped recruit new members to the Alliance.

Multiple phone calls and emails to the National Alliance for comment for this story went unanswered. But the local chapter does send out mass e-mails to the press publicizing anti-immigration demonstrations and other activities. It also maintains a post office box address for the organization in Kirkwood.

While the National Alliance Web site, www.natallstl.com, fails to show any information about the Oct. 26 group demonstration in Kirkwood, it does display photos and background on an anti-immigration protest held in front of KTVI (Channel 2) in St. Louis July 20.

At that event, demonstrators can be seen holding stenciled signs saying, "9/11 Terrorist (sic) Were Immigrants," and "Stop All Non-white Immigration." The National Alliance bills itself as "an international community of men and women dedicated to the protection and advancement of Western Civilization and of its founding race."

While the group has not been linked to any violent activity in the St. Louis area, Aroesty said members are capable of Violence and likely have weapons and explosives stored. Mainly, though, the group has confined its activities to leafleting in suburban areas to attract new members.

Founded in Hillsboro, W.Va., in 1974, Aroesty said the National Alliance is "probably the most active Neo-Nazi organization in the United States today."

Don Corrigan is a professor in the School of Communications at Webster University and also edits three weekly newspapers.

(Some information for this story contributed by Webster University student journalist Jonathan Kleinow.)