Idaho town stares down so-called Aryan church—and wins
At first, the community ignored the preacher's Sunday sermons promoting a “White People’s Republic” in the Northwest. Then they organized against him.
(The Christian Science Monitor) The church dripped with Nazi flags, swastikas, and racist war cries. It displayed a bust of Adolf Hitler. Outside, a guard tower watched over the compound set on a path marked “whites only.”
From his self-proclaimed Aryan Nations church in northern Idaho, a retired engineer named Richard Butler preached hate to his followers and served it upon the community. The town of Coeur d’Alene became code for white supremacists.
But the community came together to reject the vision of Butler’s small band and drive its adherents out. It took more than two decades, but it worked.
