Excerpt: A handful of white separatists and more than 300 protesters swarmed Kalispell’s public library one night last week – again – in what has become a sort of ongoing combination white-nationalist-film-festival-turned-street-theater.
Outside, a rainbow of banners flew diversity’s flag, punctuated by signs and placards protesting hate. Inside, the white separatists settled into a small room to watch a movie about the Nazi party. And at the doorway in between, a minor skirmish, a broken camera, and a couple misdemeanors for the separatists.
It was the second such confrontation in as many months, and another already is scheduled for May.
The article makes two reference to the basement of the library, which must be where the meeting room is located.
An April 30 version of this story provides the library director's perspective.
Kim Crowley, library director, said she's received a few complaints from people who wish the library wouldn't give the white nationalists a venue for their films. But most people, from both sides of the protest line, have been supportive of the fact that the library protects everyone's First Amendment rights, she said.
Just like it says here.
Link to American Library Association's "Meeting Rooms: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights".
The local paper, the Daily Inter Lake had this to report on May 1: "Pair arrested during Nazi movie protest".
Excerpt: Two members of a white separatist group were arrested during a protest over a pro-Nazi film shown at the Flathead County Library on Thursday night.
Married couple Mark Harrington, 42, and April Gaede, 44, of Kalispell, who helped organize the film’s screening, were arrested by Kalispell Police on charges of simple assault and criminal mischief for their involvement in a scuffle that knocked the camera out of a protester’s hand and broke its flash.
Married couple Mark Harrington, 42, and April Gaede, 44, of Kalispell, who helped organize the film’s screening, were arrested by Kalispell Police on charges of simple assault and criminal mischief for their involvement in a scuffle that knocked the camera out of a protester’s hand and broke its flash.
Read more about April Gaede here.
What a mess.
ReplyDeleteIt is funny how these people showed up to try to prevent the showing of a documentary about WWII and threatened to intimidate the film goers who were outnumbered about 30 to 1, then they cried later about feeling " scared" of retribution.
ReplyDeleteGaede and Harrington are agents for the ADL. Their behavior at the library was calculated to shut down the showing of Hollywood's black-listed films - at their masters command. Both Harrington and Gaede are convicted felons who never get the critisism that all good white people who stand up for the life God gave them endure. If we don't assume the role of leadership in this great struggle, the Rabbis will pick our leaders for us! Karl Gharst
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