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    • ADL, Council on American-Islamic Relations condemns the display in Howell
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    ADL, Council on American-Islamic Relations condemns the display in Howell

    Vaseline Posted on

    HOWELL — “We are disgusted by it.”

    That is the response from several organizations following a gathering of white supremacists outside Howell’s American Legion Post 141 on Saturday, November 9, during a performance of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’.

    Specifically, the quote comes from the American Defamation League (Michigan), which wrote a statement on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.

    More: ‘We hid with Nazis outside’: White supremacists protest Howell play

    “We are disgusted by the far-right extremists who praised Hitler and waved Nazi flags outside an American Legion hosting the play ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,’ and we stand with American Legion 141 and @HowellTownship who know that hate do not belong to their community.”

    According to a video posted on social media by the American Legion, a group of five protesters carrying Nazi flags and American flags with white supremacist symbols gathered outside the organization where the show was produced by Fowlerville Community Theater.

    A member of the American Legion told WLNS the piece was intended to be educational, amid reports of rising anti-Semitism. The organization went live on Facebook on Saturday and filmed the protesters being confronted by officers from the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office.

    A protester is heard telling deputies they are protecting their right to free speech.

    When the group saw they were being recorded, they left the area.

    Another four protesters were seen flying Nazi flags in Fowlerville, at the intersection of Grand River Avenue and Grand Street. It is unclear if the protests shared members as their faces were covered.

    More: Timeline: Livingston County’s complicated history with race

    More: This isn’t who we are, right? Ten years later, I’m still writing about racism in Howell

    In a text message to the Daily, Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy confirmed that the protesters told deputies they were from Fowlerville, but since the protest was “peaceful,” deputies had no reason to ask for identification.

    The Michigan Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, also spoke out against the demonstration.

    “We condemn this expression of neo-Nazi hatred and join all those who are speaking out against the rising intolerance and societal divisions we are witnessing nationwide,” said Dawud Walid, Executive Director of CAIR-MI. “All such attempts to promote racism, anti-Semitism or any other form of bigotry must be rejected by local, state and national religious and political leaders.”

    CAIR’s mission is to protect civil rights, advance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower Muslim Americans.

    WLNS also quoted Jason Woolford, recently elected to represent the area in the Michigan House of Representatives, and Howell Mayor Robert Ellis — both of whom are frustrated by Howell’s continued reputation as a safe haven for white supremacists.

    “I say to those who use our community, and in most cases don’t even live here, to promote a message of hate, stop coming here,” Woolford said.

    “It was national news,” Ellis said. “And it’s very difficult to respond to that because we don’t have a national voice.”

    Fowlerville Community Theater released a statement Monday describing the scene at the theater.

    “As a theater, we are storytellers,” FCT’s release said. “We tell stories that transport audiences to different times and places – some real, some fantastic. This production is about real people who lost their lives in the Holocaust, and we have tried to tell their story with as much realism as possible.

    “On Saturday things became more real than we expected; we were in hiding with the Nazis outside. As a theater we want to make people feel and think. We hope that by presenting Anne’s story we can help prevent the atrocities of the past from happening weather.”

    A member of the American Legion said theatergoers were escorted to their vehicles for fear of walking out alone at the end of the play.

    “The Diary of Anne Frank” is based on the writings of the real Anne Frank, who kept a diary while her family hid from the Nazis during the occupation of the Netherlands. The family was arrested in 1944 and Frank later died of typhoid in a concentration camp. Her diaries were collected after the end of the war and given to the only survivor of the family, her father Otto Frank. It has since been published in more than 70 languages.

    It is far from the first white supremacist demonstration in Livingston County in 2024. In late July, a group gathered outside the Livingston County Historic Courthouse and then the Howell Carnegie District Library. They were heard singing ‘Heil Hitler’.

    Later that day, a second demonstration took place on the overpass at I-96 and Latson Road. In one video, the protesters could be heard chanting, “We love Hitler. We love Trump.”

    A similar demonstration took place in Brighton in August. Several local businesses publicly condemned the message. In response, a local boutique, Forest and Follies, closed.

    In reality, Livingston County never quite managed to shake off the reputation of racism it built on a ranch in the 1970s when Robert Miles, once a Grand Dragon of Michigan’s Ku Klux Klan, settled in Cohoctah Township established.

    According to the Lansing State Journal, Miles was attention-seeking and had a violent reputation. He was one of five people convicted in 1971 of planning the bombing of school buses scheduled for court-ordered desegregation in Pontiac. A few years later he was convicted on charges of conspiracy in connection with the tar and feathering of Dr. R. Wiley Brownlee, a high school principal in Ypsilanti who supported desegregation.

    Miles died in 1992 at the age of 67, but after years of rallies and demonstrations on his farm, the damage had been done. Over the years, several KKK rallies, demonstrations and a cross burning in the 1980s have resurfaced the province’s reputation.

    It has been further tarnished by national stories of racist tweets from high school students in 2014, racist flyers and anti-Semitic graffiti, vandalism and allegations of racist behavior that went unchecked at Hartland Community Schools and Pinckney Community Schools.

    In response to these incidents, residents have organized events to “wash away” white supremacy and hate at the sites of demonstrators’ demonstrations, turning graffiti from hate to love and forming community-based nonprofits to combat future discrimination .

    – Contact reporter Tess Ware at [email protected].

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