Fresh air of optimism chases ghosts of hatred
 |
|
||||||||||||||
HAYDEN, Idaho — The farm house was over there, my guide explained. The barn was there, the office nearby, the watchtower beyond, near the edge of the field.
Under those trees, he said, pointing in another direction, were the dilapidated barracks where the skinheads lived.
On a recent, summer-perfect day, it was hard to imagine that this lovely place, a meadow ringed by tall trees in the rolling hills of the Idaho Panhandle, was for nearly three decades the headquarters of hate in the Northwest.
Today, all that's left is a rickety wooden platform where Richard Butler, leader of the now-defunct Aryan Nations, once stood to spew his vile message to a small band of misfit followers.
Butler lost the property after a $6.3-million court judgment against him and the Aryan Nations two years ago. Since then, the notorious site has been thoroughly cleansed. Last summer, local firefighters used it for training, burning the 10 buildings. Two large, healthy evergreens were removed because someone had carved swastikas in the their trunks.
Today, the remote 20-acre parcel is genuinely deserving of its new name, Peace Park. No longer a harbor for hate, it now serves as silent testimony to a community of people who fought hate, and won.
But this story is far from over. Just as Peace Park is about the future, not the past, human-rights advocates around here are looking ahead, not back.
They have learned a few things in their fight and they aim to teach others. Three of them, including Tony Stewart, my guide to Peace Park and a longtime human-rights advocate in Coeur d'Alene, this week are in Pennsylvania, where hate groups are trying to gain a foothold.
The trio spoke to citizens across Pennsylvania, advising them on community strategies for responding in both reactive and proactive ways. Next, Stewart is headed to Florida, where he will deliver a similar message.
The most significant work, however, is being done where it all began. One unanswered question about the Aryan Nations episode in North Idaho is: Could it happen again?
Ongoing human-rights efforts are preventive medicine, inoculation against this region ever again becoming a haven for hate.
At the outset, new efforts are being funded by Idaho native Greg Carr, now of Boston. He is sending some of the fortune he made at Prodigy, Inc. back home to seed human-rights efforts and institutions across the state.
He purchased the former Aryan Nations compound, spent $25,000 on its cleanup and gave it to the North Idaho College Foundation. The college, based in Coeur d'Alene, will use it as an outdoor classroom and laboratory, possibly for political-science lectures as well as environmental study.
Carr is funding the startup of a new organization established to create a Human Rights Center in Coeur d'Alene. The center's mission is "to promote human rights as an essential element of a just and successful democracy."
Carr has pledged $1 million over the next five years; local organizers expect to raise another $2 million. Mary Lou Reed, a former state legislator and veteran civic activist in the region, is chairman of the center committee.
Eventually, she said, there will be a place called the Human Rights Center, with exhibits and interpretive history of the region's fight against hate, but the first priority is education. Reed sees the task in simple terms: "It's how we treat each other."
Through its education program, the center will partner with schools, colleges and universities in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho, and will reach out to law-enforcement personnel, and civic and business leaders.
Carr's support goes beyond writing big checks. He encouraged members of the center committee and the Kootenai County Human Rights Task Force to visit human-rights centers around the country for ideas and inspiration. Several did, and Carr paid their way.
Visiting a place is indeed instructive. That's why I asked Reed and Stewart to take me to Peace Park.
Standing in the shade of a tall pine tree, I tried to imagine what Stewart was describing: the concession stand marked with swastikas, the guardhouse with "whites only" signs, crosses ablaze in the field, the poster of a biracial couple being used as target practice.
On a glorious sunny day, that restful place refused to offer up its ghosts. I like to think they are gone, replaced by the energy, optimism and future focus of good people like Reed and Stewart.
Mindy Cameron's column appears alternate Wednesdays on editorial pages of The Times. E-mail her at mindycameron@earthlink.net or write her c/o The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111.