BUTTE — An interstate overpass in Butte was the site of a racist display a few weeks ago that prompted an anti-hate group in Butte to plan a unity rally. Now, one of those organizers says she’s receiving threatening messages at her place of work.
"I never woke up one day and said, like, I’m going to become the face of anti-hate, but in recent years it's really become important to me and if I’m not going to stand up for it, who is?" says Shari Curtis.
Curtis created Butte’s anti-hate group, Not in Our Town, a few years ago after witnessing masked men march through Uptown with white power signs. She chose the name of the group based on a movement in Billings that was a response to anti-Semitic attacks.
In response to the white power signs on the instate overpass, Curtis’s group got to work planning a peaceful gathering, but speaking out brought backlash.
"I got a message through my work’s Facebook page and then I got a phone call yesterday at work," says Curtis.
Butte-Silver Bow County Sheriff Ed Lester says he is aware of the activity taking place and he has personally removed white power signs placed around the community.
"We’re deeply concerned about this type of behavior. Butte, Montana, is not a community that tolerates this kind of behavior. If you look at the history of Butte, the diversity of the people who built this community. Anybody who has any view other than being respectful of that diversity is not dealing in reality and again that person or persons are deeply flawed and as evidence of that they do things like this to get attention," says Sheriff Lester.
"If you look, say, at the example of Nazi Germany, which I spent most of my career studying, what you see is that the Holocaust didn’t happen all at once. It was a process. It was a progression and it kind of started small and then it got bigger and bigger and bigger and worse and worse," says Henry Gonshak, an author and retired professor in Butte.
Gonshak says counter-speech is the only way to squelch the dangerous messaging of hate groups that are on the rise in Montana and across the nation, according to data from the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks hate groups and anti-government groups across the US.
"Counter-speech, I think, is the way to respond to hate speech. If when it begins people just ignore it or they say it’s no big deal or it’s gonna go away and so they do nothing then that permits it to grow and to develop and maybe when it starts out it's not a big deal but when it develops it can be extremely dangerous. I think that the response should be to take it seriously and to speak out," says Gonshak.
Shari Curtis agrees.
"We’re all neighbors, we’re all in this together, and hate is not the answer," she says.
A peaceful gathering hosted by Not in Our Town will take place on Saturday, August 31 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Father Sheehan Park in Butte. Curtis says the gathering is a family-friendly event. She says anyone interested in attending can enjoy a cookout and bring a side dish if they desire.
