Creativity Movement

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The Creativity Movement (formerly Church of the Creator) is a United States-based white supremacist organization that advocates a whites-only religion called Creativity. The movement's use of the term creator does not refer to a deity, but rather to themselves (white people and/or Europeans).[1] Despite the former use of the word Church in its name, the movement is explicitly anti-Christian and atheist.[2]

Contents

[edit] History

The Creativity Movement was founded by Ben Klassen in early 1973 under the name Church of the Creator. The group was later led by Matthew F. Hale until his incarceration in January 2003 for plotting with the movement's head of security, Anthony Evola (an FBI informant), to murder a federal judge.

In 1996, it became the World Church of the Creator (WCOTC). Hale prefixed the name with World in 1996 in an effort to symbolize the organization's global mission of attaining a white world without Jews and non-whites. The group is not related to the TE-TA-MA "Truth" Foundation's Church of the Creator, which legally trademarked the name Church of the Creator and won a lawsuit in 2002, forcing the most recent name change. Since its start, the Creativity Movement's members have been charged and convicted in over 17 acts of racial violence, including murder.[3]

In 1991, Harold Mansfield Jr., an African-American and decorated veteran of the Gulf War, was killed in a parking lot in Neptune Beach, Florida by George Loeb, a Church of the Creator reverend.[4] George Loeb was convicted of first-degree murder on July 29, 1992, and received a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. His wife Barbara Loeb was sentenced to one year in jail on weapons possession charges. The organization has repeatedly argued that Loeb was acting in self-defense when he committed the act.

Subsequently, the murder victim's family successfully sued the organization, winning an award of $1 million in damages in March 1994.[4] Before the judgement was handed down, Klassen sold the organization's North Carolina compound, which housed its headquarters to Doctor William Pierce, head of the National Alliance, to avoid money being paid to Mansfield's heirs. The SPLC filed suit against Pierce for his role in the fraudulent scheme, and won an $85,000 judgment in 1995.[5] The amount was upheld on appeal and the money was collected prior to Pierce's death in 2002.[5] Klassen then chose former telemarketer Richard McCarty as his successor, who moved the organization to Niceville, Florida. Soon after appointing McCarty in the summer of 1993, Klassen committed suicide.[6]

During the weekend of July 4, 1999, group member and fellow law student Benjamin Nathaniel Smith went on a shooting spree because Matthew F. Hale was denied a law license.[7] Smith is viewed as a martyr by Creators.

In 2000, the Oregon-based TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation filed a lawsuit against the World Church of the Creator for using the name Church of the Creator, which the Oregon group had registered as a trademark.[8] Early in 2002 U.S. District Court Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow ruled in favor of the World Church of the Creator. However, this decision was appealed by TE-TA-MA, and in November 2002, in a reversal of the previous ruling, a panel of three judges in the appeals court overturned the previous decision. District Judge Lefkow then enforced the appeals court injunction in favor of TE-TA-MA; barring the use of the name by Hale's organization.[9] In December of 2002, the World Church of the Creator announced it was moving its headquarters to Riverton, Wyoming, in what the Anti-Defamation League claimed was an effort to avoid the court injunction barring use of the name.[10]

On January 9, 2003 Hale was arrested and charged with attempting to direct his security chief Anthony Evola to murder Judge Lefkow.[11][12] Hale was found guilty of four of the five counts (one count of solicitation of murder and three counts of obstruction of justice) on April 26, 2004 and in April of 2005 was sentenced to 40 years in a Federal penitentiary.[13]

On July 22, 2002, two followers of the organization were found guilty in federal court of plotting to blow up Jewish and black landmarks around Boston, in what prosecutors said was a scheme to spark a "racial holy war."[14] A federal jury deliberated seven hours over two days before convicting Leo Felton (the 31-year-old mixed-race son of civil rights activists) and his 22-year-old girlfriend, Erica Chase.

In August of 2004, Reverend Hardy Lloyd, friend and colleague of Reverend Hale, killed a former associate in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who was attempting to murder him and his wife [15][16] The act was ruled a case of self-defense by a jury on November 3, 2006.[17] Lloyd founded and was elected as Pontifex Maximus for the Church of Creativity, which was based in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, in 2003. He disbanded the COC in September 2007, and created the "New Dawn", a multi-racial Fascist think-tank. Lloyd now spends his time promoting Fascism throughout the world.

[edit] Current

Since Hale's conviction, there have been ongoing schisms within the organization, amounting to what was at one time eight independent groups. The Church of the RaHoWa (the religious arm of the White Crusaders of the RaHoWa - itself a break-away group from the Creativity Movement; the word RaHoWa is a contraction of "Racial Holy War" and a battle cry for church members) was one such group.[18] After police raids on the homes of several of the leading members, the group broke up and the bulk of the adherents of The Church and the White Crusaders of the RaHoWa then left to either join other groups or form newer and smaller independent groups of their own.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Expert: Hatreds rooted in poverty don't thrive here, the Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, MA), July 9, 1999
  2. ^ http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/c/creativity/
  3. ^ "Church of the Creator: A History", Southern Poverty Law Center, Summer 1999. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  4. ^ a b "Supremacist Told to Pay Black Family", New York Times, May 20, 1996. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  5. ^ a b "Mansfield v. Pierce", Southern Poverty Law Center, 03/07/1994. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  6. ^ "Hate Groups Seeking Broader Reach", New York Times, July 7, 1999. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  7. ^ "White Supremacists Rally in York, Pa.", New York Times, January 13, 2002. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  8. ^ "What's in a Name?", Southern Poverty Law Center, Winter 2002. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  9. ^ "Creator Crack-Up", Southern Poverty Law Center, Winter 2002. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  10. ^ "White Supremacist Group Fined $1,000 a Day" by The Anti-Defamation League, May 1, 2003
  11. ^ "Race extremist jailed in plot to kill judge", CNN, January 9, 2003. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  12. ^ United States v. Matt Hale grand jury indictment, 2002.
  13. ^ "White supremacist found guilty", ABC7Chicago.com, April 26, 2004. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  14. ^ "Hate, American Style", New York Times, August 30, 2002. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  15. ^ "About Hardy Lloyd", Post-Gazette, August 08, 2004. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  16. ^ "Squirrel Hill man claims self-defense in fatal shooting", Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, November 2, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  17. ^ "The Blotter", Southern Poverty Law Center, November 3, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  18. ^ "SA Attorney-General wants racist website closed down", ABC Australia, 31 January 2006. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 

[edit] External links

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