Protesters Fight Whites-Only Plan for N. Dakota Town

As white supremacist says demonstrators 'literally not human to me'
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 23, 2013 8:27 AM CDT
Protesters Fight Whites-Only Plan for N. Dakota Town
Craig Cobb, 61, in Leith, ND.   (AP Photo/Kevin Cederstrom)

With white supremacists planning a town takeover, hundreds of people headed to Leith, North Dakota, yesterday—even taking buses to get there—to protest. They stood outside a meeting hosted by Jeff Schoep, head of the white supremacist National Socialist Movement, chanting, "No hate in our state!" the Bismarck Tribune reports. "This is not a one-time, one-day thing," a protester said. "We will be here again and again until you are gone." Craig Cobb, the white supremacist who has bought up a dozen properties in the town, population 24, said he wasn't concerned about the protesters. "They’re loud, so what? They're literally not human to me." (NPR notes Cobb gave one of the plots to Schoep, whose two-day visit to Leith ends today.)

A Nazi flag stood outside the meeting, which featured a supremacist bagpiper and was held at City Hall, the Tribune notes. But Cobb could face hurdles in very different legal arenas, Reuters and NPR note: Health officials may condemn his property because of a code-violating outdoor toilet, and an ND law professor notes that the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 could squash his all-white plans. And town residents are considering another extreme way to stop him: dissolving the town and giving up control to the county. For his part, Cobb tells CNN there is one thing that could drive him away: If officials "send four dozen Somali families to Leith." (More Craig Cobb stories.)

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