The Creativity Movement, Church of the Creator
Scope: The Creativity Movement, Church of the Creator (the original name of the Creativity Movement, also has gone by the name of World Church of the Creator (WCOTC), claims a philosophy based on "nature, history, logic, and common sense" and not Religion. Some of Creativity Movement's most faithful followers and members are criminals who are, or were, in prison. Creativity Movement recruits these prisoners to buy books and newspapers, in order to achieve world wide white dominance. A common expression among Creativity Movement members is "Rahowa," an acronym for Racial Holy War.
The Creativity Movement is attempting to unite various white-supremacist groups throughout the nation, and some Shinheads have become members and reverends in Creativity Movement. To become a reverend, an in dividual must be a member of Creativity Movement, study and adhere to Creativity Movement's philosophy, and " be didicated to the white race." In the Creativity Movement's logo, seen below, is the letter "W" representing the white race; a crown above the letter "W" representing the Creativity Movement's self-proclaimed aristocratic position in nature; and a halo above the crown respresenting the white race as being unique and scred above all other values.
Gender make up: Male and Female
Racial Make Up: White only Members.
Organization: Established Hierarchy.
Colors: Black, white
Sequence of beads: NONE used
Emblem used in Graffiti: WAR, Rahowa, and have been seen wearing black T-shirts with Creativity Movement Emblem below.
Associated with: Most white supremacy groups
Rivals: Blacks and Jewish enthic groups, Homosexuals and anyone assumed to be associated with or supporting.
Criminal Activities: Assaults, intimidation, domestic terrorism, murder, arson, bombings and Hate Crimes
Known members: unknown as to exact numbers but is found in all 50 states and some of its territories. Organization is actively recruiting in the middle, High Schools, and colleges nation wide.
Propensity for Violence: Along with Creativity Movement's new recruitment efforts has come a resurgence of the violent behavior that characterized the group under Klassen's leadership in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In August 1997, a father and son leaving a rock concert in Sunrise, near Fort Lauderdale, were accosted by a group of Creativity Movement skinhead members distributing the group's literature. According to the Miami Herald, about 11 skinheads participated in the beating, kicking the pair in the back, chest, and face and smashing beer bottles over their heads.
In April 1998, Creativity Movement Florida state director Jules Fettu and fellow Creators Donald Hansard and Raymond Leone were arrested and charged with the attack. The police have classified the attack as a hate crime: according to the arrest affidavit, Fettu yelled "white power" and racial epithets and raised his hand in a white power salute during the beating. Hansard and Leone pleaded guilty; Fettu is awaiting trial. Guy Lombardi, the group's Southeast regional director, pleaded guilty to charges that he tried to intimidate a witness in this case.
After Lombardi's arrest, Hale dismissed him from his post for "insubordination," but the action was apparently not linked to his violence. In the September 1998 issue of The Struggle, Hale wrote, "Lombardi was not replaced as Commander of the White Berets as a form of punishment for being arrested. Not at all. Being arrested for engaging in our religious rights has never and will never be considered anything by me other than a badge of honor."
Leone and Hansard were also charged in another Creativity Movement-related crime in Florida. They and two other members of Creativity Movement, Angela King and Dawn Witherspoon, were indicted on hate crime conspiracy charges stemming from a March 29, 1998, armed robbery of a Hollywood, Florida, adult video store and assault of the store's owner. According to the indictment, the four chose the target "because the defendants ... believed that media outlets were controlled by 'Jews,' and that it was permissible to steal from the 'Jews.'" The Creativity Movement members reportedly patterned the robbery after a similar incident in William Pierce's The Turner Diaries. Moreover, the group talked about sending the money from the heist to Creativity Movement's Illinois headquarters. All of the defendants pleaded guilty: Witherspoon was sentenced to 13 months in jail, Hansard to 4 1/2 years, King to six years and Leone to more than eight years in prison.
Income: Major income is thought the sale hate oriented music, donations from those who exsposed white supremacist views and other means.
History: Church of the Creator (the original name of the Creativity Movement, also has gone by the name of World Church of the Creator (WCOTC)) and "creativity," the ostensible "theology" of the "church," were the inventions of Ben Klassen, a one-time Florida state legislator born in Ukraine and raised in Canada. After drifting among many far-right causes, Klassen announced the formation of his "church" in 1973. Klassen wrote, "We completely reject the Judeo-democratic-Marxist values of today and supplant them with new and basic values, of which race is the foundation." Unlike other hate groups who manipulate Christianity to justify their racism, WCOTC attacks Christianity as the "tremendous weapon in the worldwide Jewish drive of race-mixing." Creators assert that Jews "concocted" Christianity "for the very purpose of mongrelizing and destroying the White Race." Indeed, the main focus of Creativity Movement's venom is directed toward Jews, whom they accuse of being "parasites" who "control and manipulate the finances, the propaganda, the media and the governments of the world." In the early 1990s, Creativity Movement emerged as one of the most violent hate groups on the radical right, attracting several hundred neo-Nazi skinheads and other white supremacists from the U.S. and around the world. It was responsible for, or connected to, at least one Florida murder, and an attempt to foment a race war on the West Coast. The event that pushed the organization into the national spotlight and led to its temporary undoing was the murder of African-American Persian Gulf War veteran Harold Mansfield Jr. in a Neptune Beach, Florida, parking lot. George Loeb, a Creativity Movement "reverend" with a history of racist harassment, was arrested along with his wife, Barbara, on June 6, 1991, in Poughkeepsie, New York, and charged with the crime. George Loeb was extradited to Florida where he was convicted of first-degree murder on July 29, 1992, and received a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. Barbara Loeb was sentenced to one year in jail on weapons possession charges. In March 1994, the family of the murdered veteran filed and subsequently won a lawsuit against Creativity Movement, resulting in a $1 million damage award and the dissolution of the organization for vicarious liability in the murder. Klassen appeared to anticipate this lawsuit, and spent the last years of his life in a frantic attempt to unload Creativity Movement assets -- like selling his North Carolina compound, which housed Creativity Movement's headquarters -- and divest himself of responsibility for the organization. His search for a successor settled on Richard McCarty, a telemarketer previously unknown in hate group circles, who moved the group's headquarters to Niceville, Florida. Soon after appointing McCarty in the summer of 1993, the 75-year-old Klassen committed suicide by swallowing four bottles of sleeping pills.
Hale, has previously been arrested on relatively minor charges associated with his extremist activities, but has served no significant jail time. According to Hale, his one conviction was overturned because police failed to read him his rights. Hale had been accused of felony obstruction of justice for refusing to provide the details of an episode in which his brother, who allegedly shares Hale's racist views, drew a pistol on a Black man. Hale's brother was convicted of a misdemeanor in the case.
In June 1998, Hale graduated from the Southern Illinois University School of Law and soon after passed the Illinois State Bar. However, the Fitness and Character Committee of the Illinois State Bar denied his application for a law license, and Hale appealed the decision to the Bar's Hearing Board. In the January 1999 issue of WCOTC's monthly newsletter, The Struggle, Hale reached out to his fellow "Creators" and asked them to mobilize themselves in the event that the Hearing Panel would reject his appeal: "I call upon all White Racial Loyalists, whether inside or outside of the Church, to stand united in their opposition to this further attempt to disempower our Race in the court of law. While the time has not yet come for protests and other public shows of support for this struggle, the time is now to galvanize the entire White Racial Loyalist community in the event that the Hearing Board also declines my certification. I need all of you to spread news of what is happening throughout our community. For now, these events must only serve to motivate all of us even further to do our utmost to bring about the destruction of the Jewish system."
On July 2nd, 1999 -- the day Smith's murderous rampage began -- the Hearing Board ruled against Hale. In a statement released that day, Hale said, "I have been denied my most precious rights of speech and religion. If the courthouse is closed to 'NON APPROVED RELIGIONS,' America can only be headed for violence." When The New York Times asked Hale if he thought Smith's shooting spree was connected to the Illinois State Bar's decision, Hale replied "I do. I very much do."
Copyright © 2000-2007, all rights reserved. Duplication of any of these pages in any form without the express permission of the owner infoa@ctgia.org is strictly prohibited.