White supremacist group solicits Mainers

Boston Globe/July 17, 2002

Kennebunk, Maine -- A national white supremacist organization has been soliciting Mainers by placing leaflets on cars. The leaflets, which prompted complaints to the police department when they appeared in Kennebunk, came from a group calling itself the National Alliance and urged people to mail $2 for membership information.

Makr Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization in Montgomery, Ala., said the National Alliance is the nation's ''premier'' neo-Nazi organization.

''They've been leafleting a great deal around the country in the past year,'' Potok said. ''This is a part of a real surfacing of the National Alliance onto the public radar screen.''

Representatives from the National Alliance, which is based in Hillsboro, W.Va., could not be reached for comment.

Maine is an attractive target for the National Alliance because it has a rural character and is the whitest state in the nation, said Steve Hochstadt, a Bates College history professor and board member of the Holocaust Human Rights Center.

''But Maine is also one of the most liberal states, and these groups so far haven't gotten anywhere in Maine,'' he said.

The leaflets feature pro-white rhetoric with a blue-eyed pig-tailed girl under a headline, ''What did you do during the Revolution, Daddy?''

The National Alliance Web site includes a section where people can print out the leaflets.

Dale Carmel, a real estate broker, found a leaflet on her car parked on the cul-de-sac where she lives.

''It's a shame that these hateful so-called Christians invade our lovely town and neighborhoods peddling their trash,'' she said.

Police Chief Mathew Baker said several residents have complained about the leaflets. While they may be offensive to many people, the fliers are legal as long as people don't trespass, incite violence or make threats, Baker said.