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500 Protesters Counter Neo-Nazi March in Columbia

updated: Sunday, March 11

Some 20 members of the National Socialist Movement staged a 90 minute march and rally in Columbia, Missouri Saturday.  More than 300 staged a counter-protest and the event sparked a wide variety of activities that united students, faculty, Columbia residents, leaders and clergy.

Seven spectators were arrested and several people suffered minor injuries in scuffles that erupted during the march by a neo-Nazi group.

Efforts to peacefully counter the neo-Nazi rally were spearheaded by Jewish and Non-Jewish Mizzou students in conjunction with Hillel.

Full coverage and videos:
on Post Dispatch stltoday.com
on Columbia Missourian.com
on jewishinstlouis.org:
Hate Group Unites Columbia: A Student's Personal Story

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Students Spearhead Effort to Steal Thunder
From Neo-Nazis
Scheduled for Saturday, March 10 in Columbia, MO

     (March 8, 2007) A group of Jewish and non-Jewish students at the University of Missouri - Columbia is spearheading an effort to counter a posssible Neo-Nazi rally this weekend, under the aegis of the Jewish Student Organization (JOS). Their strategy: take attention away from the march and rally, set for Saturday, March 10, from noon to 5 p.m. 

     The National Socialist Movement (NSM), headquartered in Minneapolis, has a permit for 20-50 members to march on a route passing near the Hillel at the University of Missouri - and near the School of Journalism. “The purported reason for the march and rally is to protest the teaching of Marxism at the University’s School of Journalism," says Hillel Executive Director, Kerry Hollander. "I was frightened when I heard about it and was considering who I might approach for advice..." But she was approached by students first.

     Said student Molly Moore: "We approaced Kerry Hollander the next day and got support from her and several other JSO members who were at the Hillel at that time. The website was set up that night. We set up a meeting the next day (Monday 3/5) with JSO and leaders of several other minority groups and proposed the idea. The JSO was the first organization to lend their support to us, and that night Debi Tozer (JSO President), Anna Fleischer (my roommate), and I sat down to contact other groups and fine-tune the site. We wanted a name to sign our letters with, and came up with 'Columbia Acceptance Project.' So while our project isn't a direct project of the JSO,  Hillel's immediate support was critical in getting the idea off the ground. "

     Moore added that she got involved because, "It's basically a matter of human conscience. I come from a Jewish background on my mother's side and have always been involved in social justice projects through my Unitarian church and my high school Amnesty International chapter. Saturday's hate march provides a wonderful and all-too-rare opportunity for the students, faculty, community members, business people, religious leaders, and politicians of Columbia to join together and demonstrate that we will be unified by this unfortunate event. While the NSM have a permit to march in Columbia, this is our town and, as the Columbia Acceptance Project shows, our town will rise above hate."

     Says Hollander, “I am very proud of the students’ response, both in the direction they’re taking, the leadership they’re showing, in hosting and attending meetings and speaking to organizations in the community to get them on board.” 
  
     Their efforts have succeeded. The University and city of Columbia are hosting activities during the scheduled march. The University will hold counter activities on Stankowski Field across from the (Jewish) Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house, while the city of Columbia hosts an event at Douglass Park. “We’re trying to emulate what happened in Orlando, FL, where the community was so busy, no one paid attention to the marchers. They got frustrated and left early,” said Hollander. She added that the plan is to avoid a repetition of the fiasco in Toledo, Ohio where an NSM march sparked a riot.

     One important aspect of the plan, backed by the JOS, includes the creation of a the special website by Fleischer, a Jewish sophomore from California, and  Moore, a junior. The site is designed to help divert attention from the neo-Nazi effort: www.tolerance.homestead.com. Visitors are urged to pledge money for charities for every minute the march lasts.  
          
    On  www.tolerance.homestead.com, the students state the following: “There are many ways to show people that we will not stand for hate, however going to the march is not one of them. This is a violent group trying to start riots and will use any means necessary to do so. Columbia Police expect 10-30 marchers as well as undercover members to try to incite riots.  While we respect their first amendment rights, we advise not giving them the satisfaction or publicity that they want. Although they plan to march in our town, we can transform their very steps into steps towards tolerance, by using their event to raise money for the causes they stand against!"

   Mizzou's Jewish Student Organization is supported by Hillel and is a University-recognized group. Hillel is a beneficiary agency of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis. There are nearly 700 Jewish undergraduate and graduate students at Mizzou and some 200 Jewish faculty members. The university is approximately 125 miles west of St. Louis.

Read coverage in Columbia newspapers:

Columbia Missourian:
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/story 

Columbia Daily Tribune: http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2007/mar/20070302news007.asp