The myriad figurines of The Hate Project. Photo by Audrey Davis.
Amid the panoply of commemorations for the 50th anniversary of Birmingham’s pivotal Civil Rights year, 1963, it’s easy to believe that the specters of hate and intolerance have been banished to the dustbin of history. A new exhibit at Birmingham-Southern College (BSC) is dedicated to educating the public to the contrary.
The Hate Project, an art installation by BSC professor Steve Cole, maps the 1,007 hate groups currently active in the United States that have been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Hate groups as diverse as neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and the New Black Panther Party are represented by 10-inch cast figurines arranged state-by-state on a black map on the 42-foot gallery floor. In the process, the installation not only illustrates with immediacy the reality of extremist hate in America, but also debunks convenient fictions, such as hate being confined to the Deep South.
It seems hard to believe, but these groups are thriving in an age of instant dissemination of propaganda on the internet. They’ve become even more subversive, in fact, by apparently moderating their messages, which remain centered on intolerance.
“We think evil should look like evil,” said BSC professor Randy Law, an expert on the history of terrorism, but under the influence of leaders like former KKK chief (and Louisiana gubernatorial candidate) David Duke, “there are no more grand wizards anymore – they’re executive directors. It’s the corporatization of hate. … It’s part of their branding and their market strategy.”
The appearance of the Hate Project figurines, based off of cherubic Hummel figures, relates in part to the subversive message of modern hate. They also represent the fact that so many members of hate groups start off young in islands of intolerance.
“That’s the saddest part of all of this,” said Cole. “They’re all homeschooled. That’s the only thing they see. They’ve probably never talked with a person of color. All the evils of the world, to them, come from one place; they’re taught intolerance as innocent kids.”
The many tactics of hate literature. Photo by Audrey Davis.
On the walls facing the figurines are two boards covered with literature from the hate groups; one is full of propaganda of varying degrees of virulence, while the other is directly aimed at the recruitment of children. When discussing recruitment, Cole referenced the Klan’s ambitions for “educational” summer camps as well as the relatively widespread appeal of racist music, such as the now-defunct Prussian Blue, a pop duo from Bakersfield, California named after the color of the Zyklon B gas employed in Nazi death camps.
These hate groups are united more than ever by a common fear of Barack Obama, which has led to groups like the KKK making common cause with former enemies like the neo-Nazis. The groups latch onto such hot-button issues as the Trayvon Martin scandal, adding a tinge of extremism typically masked in the coded language of heritage and pride. In assessing the danger of this approach, Cole, paraphrasing the SPLC’s Mark Potok, refers to a man who “doesn’t make bombs; he makes bombers.”
Yet there are reasons to be hopeful when it comes to the decline of American hate groups. Cole and fellow BSC professor Jim Neel traveled to Pulaski, Tennessee, birthplace of the Klan, for the group’s national rally while doing research for the project. According to the professors, they were the only non-Klansmen in attendance, becoming the audience (along with irritated policemen tasked with standing guard) to a hollow spectacle.
“There was a farmer’s market on one side of the courthouse and the Klan rally on the other,” Cole said. Another local shopkeeper, who proudly hires black employees, ran some other Klansmen out of his business. In general, there was no reaction at all from the town, not even a protest to lend credence to the Klan’s delusions of influence. It was, Cole, Neel and Law all agreed, the best way to handle the situation.
“The danger of some of these 50th anniversary celebrations is that we caught up in this certain air of victory, of triumphalism,” said Law. “The right side won and vanquished hate and intolerance.” Surrounded by an abundance of evidence to the contrary, Law averred that “any celebration that doesn’t take stock of [modern-day hate groups] in a clear-eyed way is really pretty hollow.”
In addition to the striking map in the main space of the Durbin Gallery, The Hate Project is supported by some beautiful photography from Jim Neel depicting Harrison, Arkansas, the headquarters of the Knights Party of the KKK. In the squalor of economically depressed Harrison (and the even more run-down town of Zinc on its outskirts), the appeal of the pomp and circumstance of the Klan, of the message of intolerance, is somehow more conceivable.
It’s also worth noting, as both Cole and Neel were quick to mention, that the town of Harrison has a population that’s 95 percent white. Cole also remembered finding “border” vigilantes in Kansas, hundreds of miles away from the Mexican border. The myopia of these hate groups seems like a malign reflection of the phenomenon of single-issue voters, as one source of hate, no matter how distant or harmless, can be blamed for all of society’s ills. Their growing unease with a rapidly changing, aloof world morphs into convenient – and, to them, alien – targets.
As Neel said, “This hate? It’s all rooted in fear. All of it.”
The Hate Project is on display at Birmingham-Southern College’s Durbin Gallery. On Thursday, September 12, there will be a panel lecture from Law and SPLC Director of Outreach Lecia Brooks at 11 a.m. in the Norton Theater. For more information, call (205) 226-4926 or click here.
CORRECTION (9/10/13, 2:05 p.m.): This article has been amended to reflect the fact that The Hate Project is a solo work by Steve Cole. Jim Neel’s photographs are ancillary to the installation.