West Virginians had scarcely finished recovering their dead from one of the nation’s worst coal mine disasters when more bad news came to call. In April, hatemonger Fred Phelps announced plans to picket sites across the state, accompanied by his band of antigay followers from Westboro Baptist Church. (Phelps believes that the miners died because God is punishing America for tolerating gays.) West Virginians weren’t about to stand by while Phelps and company spewed invective. They staged a series of upbeat counterrallies, complete with flash mobs dancing to a disco version of “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
West Virginia’s spirited response is among a growing collection of anti-hate stories shared on a Web site called Not in Our Town. “The story of resistance to intolerance is ever new,” says Patrice O’Neill, a documentary filmmaker whose work has sparked this grassroots movement against hate.
The Not in Our Town Web site launched in April, but O’Neill and colleagues at the Working Group, a nonprofit media company in Oakland, Calif., have a long history of producing anti-hate messages. In 1995, PBS aired their first Not in Our Town documentary about the citizens of Billings, Mont., rallying to resist white supremacists. As a follow-up to the broadcast, filmmakers offered to host town hall meetings with interested communities, using the Billings story as a starting point for conversation. “We expected to organize 10 [town meetings]. There were more than 100 across the country,” O’Neill recalls. “People recognized that we need to have discussions about how we treat each other.”
For most filmmakers, that would have been a satisfying conclusion to a project. But this story wouldn’t go away. O’Neill soon found herself fielding calls from Bloomington, Ill., where citizens were organizing a local campaign in support of African- American churches. “They had created a whole series of events around the documentary,” O’Neill recalls, “and so we went there with our cameras.” Similar events played out in Kokomo, Ind., and Columbus, Ohio. “People were ready to take the Not in Our Town story and make it their own. There were incredibly innovative actions taking place on the ground, and it was important for us to document those actions and retell those stories.”
Mark Potok, who directs the Intelligence Project for the Southern Poverty Law Center, considers O’Neill’s work “terribly important. No town wants to say, ‘We have a problem with hate,’” he adds. But by gathering examples of citizens who do speak up when confronted with intolerance, the Not in Our Town Web site “has made this into a national idea. Communities can see how to use these events to create discussions that would never occur otherwise,” he adds. The Billings story stands out, he adds, “as one of the most brilliant, homegrown responses to hate this country has ever seen.”
As a grassroots movement, Not in Our Town has evolved in parallel with the Internet. At first, resources were simply shared on the PBS Web site. As the Internet became more interactive, the Working Group realized they needed to have their own Web site. They started creating the new site with help from the Bay Area Video Coalition. Several foundations contributed money to help pay for building the site. The next challenge, O’Neill says, will be teaching community members how to use digital tools to document and share their own stories.
Involvement in the Not in Our Town Web site “has changed me as a filmmaker,” O’Neill says, and has also shifted the focus of the Working Group toward advocacy. “There are lots of ways we could cover hate crimes. We focus on individuals and communities who are trying to create better, safer, more inclusive environments,” she says. By incorporating civic engagement into their work and expanding their reach through online tools, “there is a more robust life for our stories,” adds O’Neill. “People find their own, innovative ways to build on them.”
Read more stories by Suzie Boss.