Anti-hate campaign launched in Great Falls after neo-Nazi propaganda found in library

On Monday the Great Falls Public Library, in coordination with YWCA Great Falls, revealed that neo-Nazi propaganda stickers have been surreptitiously inserted into a least 16 books at the public library, the latest in a series of incidents of hate speech observed in the city recently.

Susie McIntyre, director of the Great Falls Public Library, told the Tribune that she first learned of the hate propaganda in library books early Friday morning, when a community member who helps to monitor hate group activity in Montana called and told her that a sophisticated video had surfaced on a hate group chat site showing books at the public library with racist literature being placed inside of them.

“The video had music and would show a picture of a book with the literature in it,” McIntyre said. “Then the book would close and that would go with beat of the music. They’re doing it secretly, cowardly, and they’re putting them in books so that when the public opens the book, they’re exposed to this hate literature.

“Some of it is antisemitic, some of it is Holocaust denial, some of it specifically against Black people, and some of it urges white people to be 'pure' and not intermarry with other races,” she added. “They have two aims. One is to cause intimidation and fear in the targeted groups. The other is they are trying to recruit and radicalize people. This is very dangerous for a young person who maybe doesn’t have all their beliefs about the world set yet and is feeling a little bit lost. When they go down this QR code, it tells them that all their problems are not because of anything they have done, but because Jewish people or Black people or other people of color are taking things away from them and they need to stand up for their white race.”

McIntyre also shared the information at Tuesday night's City Commission meeting, calling for residents to report any further evidence of hate literature at the library.

“We removed the hate material from 16 books, and we searched several sections of the library, but we cannot be sure that they were all removed,” McIntyre told the Great Falls City Commission. “We are asking that if anybody finds this propaganda at the library or in library materials that they let us know.”

An image provided by the Great Falls Library Foundation shows an array of the neo-Nazi propaganda texts that were inserted into Great Falls Public Library books. They include line drawings of a black figure holding a gun to a kneeling white figure with the slogan “Great Replacement is White Genocide. Get Off Your Knees” and “Diversity Means Dividing Whites, Inclusion Means Excluding Whites, Equity Means Robbing Whites.”

Now, the library and the YWCA, along with local organizations like the Great Falls Development Authority, Great Falls Chamber of Commerce, NeighborWorks and the United Way, have established a campaign, Hate Has No Home Here, and invite the community to join.

“We are not saying that people do not have the right to have hateful views and to make hateful statements,” McIntyre said. “We’re not alleging that they broke any laws. They did break library policy. We don’t allow anyone to put unauthorized materials in library books. We don’t allow people to promote hate speech. The reason why we’re doing this campaign is the library doesn’t think the answer is to try and suppress other people’s ideas, it’s to call out what the majority of our community actually believes.

“This is a small, angry, cowardly group of people who work under cover of night trying to slip their messages in,” she added. “We want the good people of Great Falls to say this is not us. We stand in solidarity with our Jewish friends and our Black friends, and we reject this. The answer to bad speech is better speech and that is why we are doing the campaign.”

The library has created a PDF that may be found on its website, and the YWCA has a PDF on their Facebook page, that residents may print out and post in windows to spread the message behind the new campaign.

A troubling trend of racism and hate in Great Falls

Acts of racist intimidation have occurred with increasing frequency in Great Falls over the past year, including a drop of neo-Nazi propaganda near the home of a Jewish candidate for the Montana Legislature last November, drops of racist literature in the neighborhoods surrounding the Alexander Temple Church — a primarily Black church — prior to the Juneteenth celebration in 2023, and several drops of hate filled propaganda across the downtown and within several Great Falls neighborhoods over the last several months.

“They take plastic baggies and put a little sand in the bottom, and then they put their literature in it … usually handouts with disgusting messages that have QR codes and websites on them. If you go to those websites, they drop you down a rabbit hole of hate,” said McIntyre. “They go out at night, and they wear masks, so even if you have neighborhood security cameras you can’t see who they are. They’re on bicycles or in cars and then walking, and then they throw stuff on people’s porches.”

At Tuesday’s City Commission meeting, several community leaders rose to speak in support of the Hate Has No Home Here campaign. One of the first was Aaron Wiseman, a Jewish man with a multi-generational connection to Great Falls.

“I am a proud Jew,” Wiseman told the commissioners. “I was born here in Great Falls and my father, my grandfather and my great-grandfather also lived here. They were all proud Jews. Judaism in Great Falls, Montana, has been here for a very long time. I’m very proud to say the Jewish cemetery just south of town has been there since 1913.”

“The city of Billings really rallied 30 years ago when a bunch of neo-Nazis tried to say that Jews don’t belong in the state of Montana. I’m here to tell you right now that Jews belong in the state of Montana, and they belong in Great Falls. The day after tomorrow when we start Hanukkah were going to be lighting the Diane Kaplan Memorial Chanukkiah right in front of this building as we have for the past 12 years."

That event takes place on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.

Almost 30 years ago to the day, the citizens of Billings faced a similar crisis. By the end of 1992, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and a band of skinheads had become visible presences in Billings. Klan newspapers were tossed onto driveways, and flyers surfaced attacking mainly Jewish people and gay people. A bumper sticker that read “Nuke Israel” was placed on a stop sign near the Congregation Beth Aaron temple.

On Dec. 9, 1993, a child’s window, decorated for Hanukkah, was smashed by a brick. The act ignited solidarity within the Billings community. Pictures of menorahs started appearing in windows all over town. For a time, Billings was thrust into the national spotlight for its Not in Our Town campaign, a community anti-hate response bolstered by faith leaders, civic leaders, the police department, and citizens of all stripes. The Not In Our Town campaign became the focal point of an award winning PBS documentary called "Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness." The Hate Has No Home Here campaign in Great Falls hopes to emulate the success Billings achieved 30 years ago.

Residents speak publicly with warning for Great Falls

“We are approaching danger,” warned community activist Jasmine Taylor Tuesday night. “They are putting hate literature in our library books that have QR codes. That is not to target people in their 60s, that is to target teenagers and children. If a child scans that QR code, it’s going to take them to neo-Nazi message board where those individuals can then look at IP addresses and then start conversations with children. They are in danger. Our community is in danger, and we who are not facing this oppression, who are facing the least amount of danger need to be speaking up.”

“Where this is leading is violence, and the more pressure we put on to find out who is doing this, the safer we can keep our community,” Taylor added. “Those of us who are not in danger need to be using the privilege we have to make sure that this stops and that this stops now.”

Perhaps the most compelling statement came from the words of Marcus Collins, pastor of the Alexander Temple Church and Bishop for the Church of God in Christ in Montana.

“Silence is the enemy of progress, and silence is the language of the fearful,” Collins said. “This is why I will not keep silent, because I’m not afraid as a Black man to say that I love the city of Great Falls. Our city has made tremendous strides in an effort to establish a city culture that is filled with diversity and inclusivity. Does that mean we’re perfect? No, but it does mean that we are in a progressive process. A progressive process that cannot and will not be hindered by voices from the shadows.”

“It is time to shed light on the voices from the shadows by increasing the voice of love in our city,” he added. “With this in mind, I would like to request that the commission could formulate an overall task force and campaign for an entire city response to this burgeoning crisis.”

With only days to go before his fourth term as mayor of Great Falls comes to an end, Mayor Bob Kelly read from the words of a city proclamation issued less than a month ago in acknowledgement of United Against Hate Week.

“We have a shared value that all men and women are created equal, and we will defend anyone who is mistreated because of race, ethnicity, sexual preference, or religion,” Kelly read from the Nov. 7 proclamation. “The city of Great Falls strongly condemns all forms of racism, discrimination, bigotry, bias and hate speech in our community, and we stand steadfast in our commitment to foster an inclusive civil environment where everyone in our community is treated with dignity and respect.”

“For the small amount of people that are doing this, let’s remember — they operate in the dark, they operate behind hoodies so they can’t be seen, and they are well aware that evil operates in the dark,” Kelly observed extemporaneously. “You coming here tonight indicates to all of us that this is the topic that will prevail. This is a conversation that our community needs to have with each other, and we will because of the leadership you’ve shown us tonight.”

Additonal information on how to participate in the Hate Has No Home Here campaign can be found on the Great Falls Public Library’s web site and the YWCA Great Falls Facebook page.

This article originally appeared on Great Falls Tribune: Great Falls leaders rise in response to neo-Nazi propaganda