[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 126 (Friday, September 24, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11447-S11448]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            EAST PEORIA, ILLINOIS, COMBATS RACISM AND HATRED

 Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to call the attention 
of my colleagues to an article published in the New York Times on 
September 21, 1999. The article describes the efforts by the people of 
East Peoria, Illinois, to combat racism and hatred in the aftermath of 
Benjamin Smith's shooting rampage during the July 4 weekend. Mr. Smith, 
a former member of the so-called World Church of the Creator, targeted 
Jews, African-Americans, and Asian-Americans, killing two and wounding 
nine before shooting himself. Matthew Hale, a self-proclaimed white 
supremacist who established the World Church of the Creator, set up its 
headquarters in East Peoria.
  Mr. President, it would have been easy for the citizens of East 
Peoria to simply move on with their lives, dismissing this incident as 
an aberration and passively hoping that future acts of racial hatred 
would not plague their community. But the citizens of East Peoria are 
embracing a proactive approach to combating hatred, fostering 
tolerance, and celebrating diversity. Mayor Charles Dobbelaire recently 
announced the creation of a Human Relations Commission, which will 
guide East Peoria in their campaign to combat hate and teach tolerance.
  While we can prosecute crimes motivated by hatred, we unfortunately 
cannot legislate hate out of the human heart. Each of us has a 
responsibility to speak out against racism and embrace our differences, 
rather than use them as a wedge to divide our communities. I ask that 
my colleagues join me in recognizing the commendable efforts made by 
the citizens of East Peoria to combat racial hatred and promote 
tolerance and that an article from the New York Times be inserted in 
the Congressional Record.
  The article follows:

             [From the New York Times, September 21, 1999]

                   A City Takes a Stand Against Hate

                             (By Jo Thomas)

       East Peoria, Ill.--For years, the hard-working residents of 
     this mostly white town on the eastern bank of the Illinois 
     River did not take seriously the white supremacist views of 
     Matthew F. Hate, 27, the son of a retired local policeman.
       They recall trying to ignore his leaflets and appearances 
     on public-access television. When he set up the headquarters 
     of the World Church of the Creator in his parents' home, some 
     thought it was a joke.
       But after the July 4 weekend, when Benjamin Smith, a former 
     World Church member, went on a two-state rampage against 
     Jews, blacks and Asian-Americans, killing two and wounding 
     nine before shooting him-self, the laughter stopped.
       ``We were sickened,'' said Dennis Triggs, 54, the City 
     Attorney. ``We had the sense that benign neglect must come to 
     an end.''
       Mr. Triggs called Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern 
     Poverty law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization, to 
     ask what East Peoria could do.
       Mr. Dees sent Mr. Triggs and Mayor Charles Dobbelaire, 59, 
     a copy of the center's publication ``Ten Ways to Fight 
     Hate,'' and advised city leaders to do two things: Speak out 
     immediately and form a broad-based coalition on race issues.
       Mr. Dees also put leaders in touch with the Rev. David 
     Ostendorf, a United Church of Christ minister in Chicago who 
     leads the Center for a New Community, a group dedicated to 
     fighting white supremacist ideas and organizations in the 
     Midwest.
       Mr. Ostendorf, who believes that ``the only way this 
     movement is going to be stopped is if communities stand up 
     and say no and organize to oppose it,'' added a stop in East 
     Peoria to a civil rights tour that retraced Mr. Smith's 
     deadly trip through Illinois and Indiana.
       On July 22, with members of Mr. Ostendorf's caravan and 200 
     local residents present, the Mayor announced that East 
     Peoria, which has only a few dozen nonwhites in its 
     population of 23,400 would set up a Human Relations 
     Commission ``to guide us in combating hate and teaching 
     tolerance.''
       ``We will not surrender the minds of our young to Matt 
     Hale,'' Mr. Dobbelaire continued.
       ``I know that still today there are those who believe we 
     should not attract attention

[[Page S11448]]

     to the hatemongers,'' he said. ``They believe that if we 
     quietly go about our everyday life, those who preach hate 
     will fade slowly into the night. I ask you this: If we do not 
     speak out, loud and clear, when the hate messages spewing 
     forth from this so-called church lead to death, then when do 
     we speak out?''
       Mr. Dobbelaire's speech was followed by a prayer vigil in 
     front of the Hale family home. On the other side of the 
     ordinary, tree-lined street, a neighbor had posted a sign 
     saying ``Hate Has No Home here.''
       The Mayor, who grew up in East Peoria and said racial 
     issues rarely crossed his mind, appointed a new Human 
     Relations Commission on Aug. 17.
       ``We're in this for the long haul,'' he said.
       East Peoria has survived severe blows before, the worst 
     being the closing of a Caterpillar tractor plant that had 
     been its economic cornerstone. But it has enjoyed a comeback 
     in recent years, with a new riverboat casino and jobs in 
     entertainment, tourism and service industries.
       The idea that their town might be seen as some kind of hate 
     capital horrified the Mayor and the human relations 
     commissioners.
       ``This is really causing a bad image for our tri-county 
     area, not just East Peoria.'' said David Mingus, the 
     commission chairman. ``It's unfortunate and unrealistic. Our 
     towns are good town.''
       Mr. Mingus, 48, a mental health professional, said the 
     commission intended to take a broad look at diversity and 
     tolerance.
       ``We will keep it open to all areas,'' he said. ``It's 
     something nobody has on the scope all the time. We have to 
     change attitudes.''
       Anthter member of the commission, Charles Randle, 53, who 
     is black, said he had lived in an upscale neighborhood of 
     East Peoria for 17 years with no difficulty. But Mr. Randle 
     said he could not forget the searing experience of childhood 
     on a cotton plantation in Mississippi, where two of his 
     brothers, then young boys, were jailed for supposedly 
     whistling at a white woman. To escape that life, their 
     father, a sharecropper, moved his wife and 10 children to 
     Peoria, where he worked at a slaughterhouse and then started 
     a series of successful family businesses.
       Mr. Randle, the director of economic development for 
     Illinois Central College, said he saw the Human Relations 
     Commission as a chance for East Peoria ``to step outside the 
     box and look around.''
       Other communities have made similar efforts.
       In Boise, Idaho, several years ago, the state's image began 
     to worry the staff at Hewlett-Packard, said Cindy Stanphill, 
     the company's diversity and staffing manager.
       ``When we recruit, people know about Idaho potatoes and the 
     Aryan nations,'' Ms. Stanphill said. ``The image does not 
     necessarily represent the reality, but you have to deal with 
     both.''
       For three years, the Hewlett-Packard staff has tried to 
     find ways to insure that people they recruit and employ in 
     Boise feel welcome at work and in the community. Staff  
     members are now trying to organize an Idaho Inclusiveness 
     Coalition, a group of major employers and human rights 
     groups to promote tolerance and celebrate diversity.
       In Pennsylvania, the state's Human Relations Commission has 
     helped more than 50 communities form groups to do something 
     about hate. One group stated in Boyertown, a historically 
     all-white community northwest of Philadelphia where the Ku 
     Klux Klan distributed recruitment literature once a month.
       Residents formed a unity coalition and asked citizens to 
     pledge 5 cents to 50 cents for each minute the Klan spent in 
     town. The money went to civil rights groups and helped 
     organize the town's first rally to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin 
     Luther King Jr.
       The head of the local Klan complained that the group, which 
     was collecting $1,051 an hour, was using the Klan's name to 
     raise money, said Louise Doskow, a member of the coalition. 
     But the group persisted. ``We have raised over $11,000,'' Ms. 
     Doskow said. ``We did it every month for 13 months, then they 
     didn't show up again for a year. One person came to the 
     corner at the end of June, so we did another collection.''
       The experiences of these communities and others, collected 
     by Jim Carrier, a former reporter for The Denver Post, have 
     been added to an updated version of ``Ten Ways to Fight 
     Hate.'' Mr. Carrier said the Southern Poverty Law Center 
     would distribute a million free copies of the booklet and a 
     companion, ``Responding to Hate at School.'' The booklets 
     will go to every school principal, mayor and police chief in 
     the nation, as well as to human rights groups, religious 
     leaders and interested citizens.
       One group profiled, Coloradans United Against Hatred, 
     formed after an African immigrant was murdered by a skinhead 
     in 1997. Seeing the use of the Internet by hate groups, the 
     group set up its own Web site to offer an alternative.
       ``Are we making a huge impact?'' said Anita Fricklas, the 
     Colorado director of the American Jewish Committee, which 
     helped underwrite the project. ``It's hard to know. But an 
     impact? Definitely.''

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