The Creativity Movement (formerly known as the World Church of the Creator or WCOTC) is a non-profit white-supremacist organization which advocates a "White Religion". The group denies the Holocaust and is dedicated to the "survival, expansion, and advancement of the White Race exclusively."
The group is not related to the TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation's Church of the Creator.
The organization was founded as the Church of the Creator by Ben Klassen in 1973 and is currently led by Matthew Hale, who prefixed the name with "World" in 1996. At the time of its creation, 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."
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2 Violent acts of members 3 Trademark litigation over "Church of the Creator" 4 See also 5 External Links |
The stated doctrine of the organization is that:
In the words of Klassen, "We have a non-violent religious movement. We have a comprehensive plan as to how to achieve a Whiter and Brighter World. Every step along the way is legal, constitutional and non-violent." The Creator Membership Manual states: "any member of the Church who either commits crimes (other than unconstitutional violations of our right to freedom of speech, assembly, etc.) or encourages others to do so, will be subject to expulsion from the Church." But although the organization itself preaches non-violence, several of its members and officers have engaged in racially motivated criminal acts.
In 1991, Harold Mansfield Jr, an African-American Persian Gulf War veteran, was murdered in a Neptune Beach, Florida, parking lot. Two members of the Church of the Creator, George and Barbara Loeb, were arrested on June 6 and charged with the crime. George Loeb 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. The organization has repeatedly stated Loeb was acting in self-defense when he committed the act. In March 1994, the murder victim's family successfully sued the organization, winning an award of $11 million in damages.
After the judgement was handed down, Klassen sold the organization's North Carolina compound, which housed its headquarters, in an attempt to unload the assets of the organization. He chose former telemarketer Richard McCarty as his successor, who moved the organization's headquarters to Niceville, Florida. Soon after appointing McCarty in the summer of 1993, Klassen committed suicide.
In 1999, the group earned further attention after member Benjamin Nathaniel Smith went on a shooting spree on the weekend of July 4, 1999. Before doing so, he formally resigned from the Church, so as to not let the Church be found guilty, by association, of anything that he was to do himself. Nonetheless, Smith is viewed as a martyr by the WCOTC.
On July 22, 2002, two members of the organization were found guilty in federal court of plotting to blow up Jewish and Black landmarks, around Boston, in what prosecutors said was a scheme to spark a "racial holy war." A federal jury deliberated seven hours over two days before convicting Leo Felton, the 31-year-old the mixed-race son of civil rights activists, and his 22-year-old girlfriend, Erica Chase.
A January 11, 2003 speech by Hale was titled, The Invasion of Maine by Somalis and How We Can End It.
In 2000, the Oregon-based TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation filed a lawsuit against the WCOTC for using the term "Church of the Creator," which the Oregon group had registered as a trademark. Two years later, in November 2002, U.S. District Court Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow ruled in favor of the TE-TA-MA group, issuing a court injunction barring the use of the name by Hale's organization. In December 2002 the group announced it was moving its headquarters to Riverton, Wyoming, in what the Anti-Defamation League said was an effort to avoid the court injunction barring use of the name.
On January 8, 2003, Hale was arrested and charged with trying to hire a person to murder Judge Lefkow. He was arrested as he arrived at Chicago's federal courthouse to face a possible charge of contempt of court for refusing to obey Lefkow's ruling. His trial date is currently set for September 22, 2003.
In July of 2003, news reports concerning Hale's organization reported that the FBI had used an informant to infiltrate the group, and this informant leaked information about the alleged murder plot against Judge Lefkow to law enforcement officials. This informant had apparently been a member of the group for at least two and a half years.
As of July 2003, the organization calls itself the Creativity Movement.
Doctrine of the organization
Violent acts of members
Trademark litigation over "Church of the Creator"
See also
External Links