WINONA, Minn. – Hate groups like Aryan Freedom Network are known for secretive night-time drops of zip-lock bags with racist messages inside to promote their cause, as happened last week Winona, says researcher Nancy Vaillancourt. They throw the baggies out of car windows at night, focusing usually on certain areas of a town, she said. Vaillancourt, a librarian in Owatonna, is a leading scholar on hate groups in Minnesota history, particularly the Ku Klux Klan. “From the historical perspective, the anonymous solicitations delivered in the middle of the night was a tactic used by the Ku Klux Klan in Minnesota in the early 1920s,” she said.
Shifting hatreds
Unlike the KKK of yore, she said, most current neo-Nazi literature assures people that they are not anti-Catholic. About the Winona drops around the Catholic Cotter schools campus and the historically Catholic East End, Vaillancourt was not surprised. The Texas-based Aryan Freedom Network departs from its KKK roots and solicits Catholics explicitly. “Inviting Catholics to join would make sense in Winona, with its larger Catholic population and traditions,” she said. Continuig themes of hate groups include white supremacy and a disdan for Jews and immigrant grouos A latter=day theme has been homophobia.
Owatonna experience
Vaillancourt knows first-hand about overnight racist propaganda drops that are hard to trace. “In Owatonna last year there were several incidents in which hate groups distributed zip-lock bags with racist messages inside,” she said. “They were thrown out of car windows at night — but only in certain areas of town.” In addition, she said, flyers were left around Owatonna just before the Juneteenth slave emancipation holiday.
Earlier: Cops: No local link seen in neo-Nazi messages
Earlier: Hate group droppings around town: “Join us”
Vaillancourt. A librarian in Owatonna. Has written and spoken widely about the Minnesota KKK. The Klan has faded in the state since the 1920s but several hate groups have taken its place and are active, she says.
Forensic distinction
The Aryan Freedom Network’s zip-lock bags in Winona last week were weighted with birdseed inside to prevent wind from blowing hem away. In Owatonna last year the bags were weighted with rice.