End The Hate, Group Challenges Coalition Encourages Aryans To Move Beyond Butler’s Message

As Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler prepares for retirement, the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment is making a proposal:

End the hate and bigotry.

That’s what coalition director Bill Wassmuth urged Tuesday.

The 78-year-old Butler announced last month at his Aryan World Congress that he would appoint a board this summer to name his successor. That board would decide whether to keep the white-supremacy church in North Idaho or move it elsewhere.

While Wassmuth said he doesn’t want the Hayden Lake group calling Idaho its home, he would not wish it on another area either. Rather than encourage Butler to move, he said, the coalition will encourage an end to his way of thinking.

The Aryan Nations should know the coalition has “redoubled our efforts to fight for justice and peace,” Wassmuth said. “We hope they (Aryans) consider that as they look for their locations.”

Wassmuth was in Coeur d’Alene to announce the coalition’s 10th annual conference - “Facing the Threats: Organizing for Justice in the Northwest” - will be held at Gonzaga University in Spokane Oct. 18-20. The keynote speaker will be Morris Dees from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Wassmuth made his announcement here in commemoration of the first coalition gathering in 1987 in Coeur d’Alene. The location and theme of this gathering makes “a strong statement in opposition to the growing number of racist organizations in this area.”

Wassmuth said area militia groups, Christian Identity followers and groups like the freemen in Jordan, Mont., are almost more insidious than Butler’s groups because they hide behind an anti-government movement.

“The on-going standoff in Montana, the bank robbery and bombing in Spokane and the continual threats remind us again of the violence that has historically come from these groups,” Wassmuth said.

Authorities say the pipe bombings at a bank and a Spokane Valley office of The Spokesman-Review April 1 may have been linked to extremist groups. No one was injured in either blast.

, DataTimes