1992-06-27 Supremacist Group was Low-Key

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Supremacist Group was Low-Key
Officials report 1 incident in 1980s

The Milwaukee Sentinel
June 27, 1992
By Tom Held
Sentinel staff writer

The Church of the Creator, an anti-Semitic, anti-black group that now calls Milwaukee its headquarters, operated almost invisibly in Otto, N.C., for 10 years, officials and observers said Friday.

"We never see anybody down there," said Bob Scott, a reporter with the Asheville Citizen-Times in western North Carolina.

Scott covered the group and its founder, Ben Klassen, for a decade in North Carolina.

"The most I've ever seen down there at any one time is Klassen and two other guys," Scott said.  "He had a guy down there one time who wore a white beret, with black military boots with red laces.  He stomped around down there."

Scott said most people in the rural area surrounding the church ignored it.

Officials in the Macon County Sheriff's Department recalled only one incident of violence at the church grounds.  In the early 1980s one of the church's reverends shot out the tires on a car that had mistakenly turned into the driveway.

He was sent to prison.

State and federal authorities in North Carolina also reported no contacts with the group, which preaches against Jews and all non-whites.

"We just want to promote the white race and the survival of the white race, which is going down the drain," said Klassen, who founded the group and held the position of Pontifex Maximus.

"We want to alert the white race of the danger they're in of extinction."

Klassen said he turned over the command of the organization June 15 to a man he identified as Brandon O'Rourke.  O'Rourke, whom he identified as a reverend, allegedly has been the leader of the church's branch in Milwaukee.

There is no listing for Brandon O'Rourke in the Milwaukee phone directory.  The State Division of Motor Vehicles has no record of anyone with that name.  The church's Milwaukee address is a postal box.

Klassen said Friday he would contact O'Rourke and have him call the Milwaukee Sentinel, but later said he would do it on another day.  He refused to give out O'Rourke's phone number.

Klassen said the group chose Milwaukee because the branch headed by O'Rourke had been successful and aggressive.