T here's no Prairie State David Duke politicking from the Right in the corridors of the Capitol in Springfield. There's no homegrown Fred Phelps haranguing gay mourners at funerals in Chicago. But hate groups exist and persist in Illinois.

Still, they aren't flourishing, probably because hate philosophies are disagreeable to most people and because hate factions are disorganized, according to observers and leaders such as Matt Hale, the 27-year-old East Peorian who heads the white separatist World Church of the Creator.

Nationwide, there are a lot of hate groups, according to Mark Potok, editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report, a quarterly publication that tracks the radical Right. "There were 537 hate groups in the United States in 1998," Potok says - a 13 percent increase from 1997. Each state has at least one, except Iowa, Maine, North Dakota and South Dakota. Seventeen exist in Illinois, though that's fewer than in 1997.

"Organizations themselves don't indicate activity," Potok says. "They range from the Council of Conservative Citizens, with 15,000 members nationwide, to some outfits with two or three people and a post office box." But, Potok adds there has been considerable Klan-like and neo-Nazi activities in the Midwest, particularly in the Rust Belt, where higher-paying manufacturing jobs have declined. "They seem to hang on in areas with a lot of unemployment."

Potok's judgment is similar to Hale's, who has said, "Most of our members are working class. They have the least to lose, and they don't have a lot of money, so they can get involved in our movement without much retaliation."

Others say most Illinoisans are tolerant now, but changes in strategy by hate groups elsewhere haven't happened in Illinois, so there's still some risk people could be convinced to engage in hate activities disguised as something else.

"Illinois isn't much different from anywhere in the country. Hate exists, racism exists, and most people acknowledge that," says Essie Rutledge, a sociology professor at Western Illinois University in Macomb. "But since the Civil Rights movement, there's been much more of a public sense of impropriety, of it just being wrong to be racist. It's generally not acceptable in society." Still, she warns, people may be more receptive to hate messages if they're expressed as white unity.

There's little unity among the groups. Discussing Duke, Hale has commented, "David Duke, in our opinion, has gone too far in his denunciation of his past and Adolf Hitler. He has also tried to appease the Jews, which we, of course, find absolutely abhorrent." Duke, a former Klan leader of Louisiana, served in the legislature and ran for a seat in Congress.

Politics has been disappointing for Hale, who won just 14 percent of the vote in a 1995 East Peoria City Council election. But it still offers potential, he's said. "When I run again for city council, I will be running as much as anything to spread the word of creativity and the white racial cause. Whether I win or not is not even really all that important."

Spreading the message is also a defense against hate, says George Gordon, an active member of the Jewish congregation of Moses Montefiore Temple in Bloomington. "There hasn't been a major outbreak of racism or hate crimes in Bloomington-Normal, but a lot of local people have made a real effort to be proactive on racism and other hate. We're trying to head it off." Gordon has taken part in the series of "Not in Our Town" demonstrations supported by minority advocates, gay activists, organized labor and clergy. "What's the old saying? 'Evil will triumph if good people do nothing'? Well, we want to do something."

A political science professor at Illinois State University in Normal, Gordon believes social burdens can pressure people to seek scapegoats. "When there are uncertain times, some people look for certainty," he says. "Hate groups try to provide that. Sometimes more rural or remote areas can be breeding grounds because people are relatively out of the way and may feel alienated. At other times, it's just people who feel out of it, who feel they have no influence on power."

32 / July/August 1999 Illinois Issues