Chapter 10: I Hate Illinois Nazis
Happy MLK Day, everyone!
While the Klan was still operating while the Southern Troubles began, they weren't the only well known hate group trying to preserve or expand their influence. George Lincoln Rockwell of the American Nazi Party saw the situation in the country as an opportunity to grow his organization. He was an ardent segregationist and leaflets spread by the party quoted him as saying that white America was the victim of a Communist conspiracy aimed at making the US unable to impede the Soviet bloc's expansion.
However, he didn't focus his efforts on the South. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the Midwest. Its large German American population, especially in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa, were the targets of a large scale recruitment campaign. With the help of members who had access to printing equipment, the American Nazi Party scattered leaflets all in areas with high German American populations. The leaflets appealed to the memory of the anti-German sentiment the community faced in the first half of the 20th century and suggested that they should be proud of the 'noble German blood in your veins.'
Anti-semitic rhetoric was also peddled by the party whenever they could get away with. Jewish cemeteries were targets of vandalism while newly recruited members of the party were expected to call in threats to local synagogues. However, this didn't provoke the response they initially hoped for. In Chicago, multiple meetings of Jewish and African American community leaders led to the formation of neighborhood watches aimed at preventing white supremacist activities. Some of the attendees of this meeting were Holocaust survivors living in the Skokie neighborhood who were photographed meeting with local NAACP leaders, the number tattoos on their arms plain to see.
Another worrying development, to Rockwell at least, was the news that the party's activities were being met with a skyrocketing number of gun sales to Jewish Americans. In a televised address, rabbi John Muntz of Cincinnati spoke about the increase in gun ownership among members in his community, saying that 'I have met people who had fought Hitler's follows on the battlefield and suffered at their hands in the camps. The threat of force is the only thing that will make them hesitate.'
Despite the sudden increase in risk, the American Nazi Party still operated in the Midwest. They still scattered pamphlets and recruited new numbers as well as tried intimidating African Americans in subtle ways. Plainclothes members kept watch for any interracial couples they encountered, and left threatening messages in front of their homes once their could be identified. This was especially the case if a black boy was involved with a white girl. One letter, which was submitted to the FBI by the white girl who received it read 'we implore to think of the health of your bloodline and not dishonor yourself, to think of the bigger picture.' She had been seen by a plainclothes party member during a date with her boyfriend, a black boy from her high school.
The attempts to break up interracial couples got mixed reactions. Some of the party's sympathizers felt that they were ensuring proper racial norms were followed and that teenage culture was becoming degenerate due to 'negro influence.' But to teenagers throughout the region, this was an attempt by follows of a failed ideology to dictate their love lives. Rockwell's efforts to chill burgeoning interracial romances weren't entirely futile though. The party's more violent activities made black and Jewish teenagers hesitant to form romantic relationships with whites, out of fear of themselves and their prospective partners becoming targets of violent retribution.
