Rally in SC. in the News

Largest neo-Nazi group in U.S. plans rally at Statehouse

Associated Press

COLUMBIA - The largest neo-Nazi group in the United States has scheduled a rally against illegal immigration at the South Carolina Statehouse.

About 200 people are expected at the April 21 rally, which is the same weekend as the group's three-day national meeting set to be held in Laurens, said John Taylor Bowles, state director of the National Socialist Movement.

The group plans to gather a few blocks from the Statehouse then march to the north side of the Capitol complex for a three-hour demonstration. The group has a permit to rally from 1-4 p.m., according to State Budget and Control Board documents.

The Columbia Police Department, however, has not decided whether to approve the group's request for a parade permit, police spokeswoman Sgt. Florence McCants said. "Our concern is just being able to maintain security for everyone involved."

Bowles said some members are expected to wear storm trooper uniforms and brown shirts and carry flags with swastikas, reminiscent of those of Adolph Hitler's Nazi party in Germany in the 1930s and '40s.

The rally, which may include members of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, is to protest illegal immigration.

"A lot of them don't speak English," the NSM's commander, 33-year-old Jeff Schoep of Minneapolis, said of illegal immigrants. "They're not trying to speak English. They're coming to conquer our country, not to become a part of it."

Schoep said he expects there will be some protesters at his group's rally. "If it gets physical, we will defend ourselves," he said.

One People's Project, a Philadelphia group that fights racism, expects to have members observing, according to spokesman Daryle Lamont Jenkins.