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

On November 13, 2024By Littum

HOWELL — “We are disgusted.”

That’s the response from several organizations in response to a white supremacist rally outside Howell’s American Legion Post 141 on Saturday, Nov. 9, during a performance of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

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

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

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

An American Legion member told WLNS the play was meant to be edifying amid reports of rising anti-Semitism. The organization went live on Facebook on Saturday and filmed the protesters being confronted by deputies from the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office.

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

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

Four more protesters were seen waving Nazi flags in Fowlerville at the intersection of Grand River Avenue and Grand Street. It is unclear if the protests divided members as their faces were covered.

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

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

“We condemn this display of neo-Nazi hatred and join all those speaking out against the increasing bigotry and societal division we are witnessing nationwide,” said CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid. “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, increase understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.

WLNS also cited Jason Woolford, who was 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 supremacy.

“I would say to those who use our community, and in most cases don’t even live here, to promote a hateful message, don’t come 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.”

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

“As a theatre, we are storytellers,” read the announcement from FCT. “We tell stories that transport the audience to different times and places – some real, some fantastical. This production centers on real people who lost their lives in the Holocaust, and we have endeavored to tell their story with as much realism as possible .

“On Saturday … things became more real than we expected; we hid with 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 again.”

A member of the American Legion told outlets that theatergoers were escorted to their vehicles for fear of going 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 their occupation of the Netherlands. The family was arrested in 1944 and Frank later died of typhus in a concentration camp. Her diaries were retrieved and given to the family’s sole survivor, her father Otto Frank, after the war ended. It has since been published in more than 70 languages.

It is far from the first white supremacy 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 shouting “Heil Hitler”.

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

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

In reality, Livingston County has never quite been able to shake the reputation for racism it earned on a farm in the 1970s when Robert Miles, once a Grand Dragon of the Michigan Ku Klux Klan, settled in Cohoctah Township.

According to the Lansing State Journal, Miles was attention-seeking and had a reputation for violence. He was among 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 of a conspiracy charge in connection with the tarring and firing 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 was done. Over the years, various KKK ralliesdemonstrations and a cross that burned in the 1980s brought the county’s reputation back to the surface.

It has been further tarnished by national stories about racist tweets from high school students in 2014, racist flyers and anti-Semitic graffiti, vandalism and allegations of racist behavior 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 hatred in the places where protesters demonstrated, converted graffiti from hate to love, and established community non-profit organizations to combat future discrimination.

— Contact reporter Tess Ware at [email protected].