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A stone ignites a community: Billings stood up to white supremacists
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Billings Gazette (One of Montana's leading newspapers)
Posted: January 2nd, 2017
http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/a-stone-ignites-a-comm...
In its simplest form, the story of Not in Our Town is of a city that stood up for its Jewish residents against the bullying tactics of white supremacists. Hate group activity in Billings, [Montana] was brewing in the fall of 1992. Then in January 1993, the Montana Association of Churches held an ecumenical service ... to boost interfaith unity and celebrate the work of Martin Luther King Jr., said Margie MacDonald, now a Montana legislator who was then MACs executive director. When people returned to their cars, they found on their windshields fliers targeting minorities, homosexuals ... and human rights organizations. MacDonald remembered eating cookies and drinking coffee inside First United Methodist Church when people came back in, shaking, holding the fliers in their hands. This is what kind of opened our eyes to the magnitude of it, she said. The ad hoc group, which called itself Community Coalition to Oppose Hate Groups, continued holding community conversations and circulated a resolution to counter bigotry. Our philosophy and our effort was to create an opportunity for the community to stand beside those people being targeted and make it clear that we would not sit back and let it happen, MacDonald said. Word of the towns actions started to spread. Patrice ONeill, CEO ... of the nonprofit media company The Working Group, read about what happened. She ... came to Billings, interviewed key players and produced [the film Not in Our Town, which] was aired on PBS in 1995.
Note: Watch a beautiful, five-minute video presenting this and other shining examples of what the citizens of Billings have done to curb hate in their town.
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