news-record.com

GREENSBORO — Police are preparing to keep the city peaceful this Saturday when a regional meeting of the nation’s largest neo-Nazi group is held here. Faith leaders are calling for inclusiveness and respect.

The National Socialist Movement will hold its Southeast/mid-Atlantic meeting from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at an undisclosed location in Greensboro. A social is scheduled afterward until 6 p.m.

The location for the event has not been disclosed, though talk of counterprotests has hit Internet message boards.
“We are planning and preparing,” said Dwight Crotts, assistant police chief. “We hope it’s a nonevent.

“We have made appropriate plans for all contingencies.”

The city human relations agency held a meeting Monday of 35 leaders of religious and civic groups about the neo-Nazi meeting Saturday.

The faith and civil group decided to ignore Saturday’s event publicly and to hold other events calling for inclusiveness.
The neo-Nazi meeting coincides with the upcoming 30th anniversary of the 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings, in which five people died.

The shootings happened during a “Death to the Klan” march through the Morningside Homes public housing complex. A group of Ku Klux Klan members and neo-Nazis confronted marchers. Shots were fired.

Capt. Charles Wilson, a spokesman for NSM, said the decision to hold the group’s regional meeting here had nothing to do with the anniversary.

“I understand that everyone is on pins and needles,” Wilson said by phone Tuesday.

“We are not a violent group; we are not a hate group ... we believe in (white) separatism and growing and supporting our own race.”

Wilson said about 140 people have registered for the event.

He declined to say where the event was happening.  He said only that the group has booked a meeting room.
He said the group plans to distribute literature throughout the city later in the day.

“Our goal is a peaceful rally and a peaceful get-together,” Wilson said.

“I have been through hundreds of these and I have yet to see anyone from our side arrested. We’ll defend ourselves to the fullest extent, and that’s it.”

Anthony Wade, the city human relations director, spoke of the city’s progress in race relations.

“Greensboro has done so much to build a positive climate of acceptance and respect for all,” Wade said.

“We agreed that the best response to the presence of a group that does not hold these values is to work even harder to demonstrate and highlight this community’s commitment to the principles of equity, fairness, and justice.”

The group decided to call for inclusion in the city with opinion pieces in publications, as well as displaying multicolored lapel pins this weekend to signify support of multiculturalism in the city.

“The power of our Greensboro community is our social capital,” said Marilyn Chandler of the Greensboro Jewish Federation, who attended the meeting Monday.

“We have also asked for all clergy in Greensboro to speak within our congregations this weekend about inclusiveness and embrace diversity.”

Contact Ryan Seals at 373-7077 or ryan.seals@news-record.com