2000

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• Bloomington (Ill.) Public Library (October 28)

  • ​Library Can Limit Supremacist But Not Bar Him | American Libraries
    "Hale, leader of the World Church of the Creator, received a raucous reception October 28 when he and about 15 followers confronted more than 100 opponents in the meeting room"
     

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2001

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• Wallingford (Conn.) Public Library (March 11)

  • ​Shouts and Scuffles at White Supremacy Rally | New York Times
    "Today's encounter was the culmination of a weeks-long plan by a local racist group to present a speech by Matt Hale, the national leader of the World Church of the Creator, which claims to be one of the most popular white supremacist groups in the United States. After news spread that the Wallingford Town Library had allowed the group and Mr. Hale to reserve a meeting space, a counterdemonstration was organized and today's battle lines were drawn. ''We have good support in Wallingford,'' said Kenneth A. Molyneaux, 23, who said he drove nine hours from Akron, Ohio, to help organize Mr. Hale's visit. Mr. Molyneaux said Mr. Hale chose Wallingford after hearing about the controversy last year surrounding the mayor's refusal to grant city workers a paid holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. ''It shows that Wallingford is fertile ground for our ideas,'' Mr. Molyneaux said, as a bank of skinheads began scuffling with a larger crowd of mostly white college-aged objectors. ''We can do things in a polite civil way,'' he said."
     

• Schaumburg Township (Ill.) District Library (March 25-August 25)​​

  • ​White Supremacist Sues Library after Speech Cancelled | American Libraries
    "World Church of the Creator leader Matthew Hale filed a federal lawsuit March 29 against the Schaumburg Township (Ill.) District Library, alleging it violated his rights by rejecting a request to let him speak there next month on the topic of “white pride.” The board cited its policy disallowing meetings that might disrupt library functions and the potential for violence in its March 25 decision to deny him meeting space, the Chicago Tribune reported March 30."

  • Library Won’t Change Policies Despite White Supremacist’s Suit | American Libraries
    "According to the May 16 Chicago Tribune, Library Insurance Management and Risk Control Combination President Jane Rowland had urged the board in a May 9 letter to add to its meeting-room policies “appropriate criteria for denying an application.” But trustees were leery of changing a policy in the midst of a lawsuit—which libraries in three states have done within the last month under similar circumstances."

  • ​White Supremacist Wins Library Venue in Schaumburg | American Libraries
    "Attorneys for World Church of the Creator leader Matthew Hale and the Schaumburg (Ill.) District Township Library reached an agreement August 7 allowing Hale to make a speech at the library. The decision came five months after library trustees had cancelled an April appearance by Hale out of concern about public safety. In March, Connecticut state police had used pepper spray to quell some 600 people who came to Wallingford Public Library to protest Hale’s speech there. Director Mike Madden told American Libraries that because the presiding judge saw the overriding issue as the First Amendment, the library “compromised” by scheduling Hale for 7:30 p.m. on August 25, a Saturday night, two-and-one-half hours after closing. Officials “felt it was too risky to hold the meeting when other people were here” who were not attending the speech, Madden explained. In an August 9 news release, Hale declared the agreement as “a great victory for our White Racist Cause”"

  • Board Rethinks Meeting-Room Policy after White Supremacist’s Talk | American Libraries
    "The board of the Schaumburg (Ill.) District Township Library is revisiting its meeting-room policy in the wake of an August 25 speech given by white supremacist Matt Hale at the library. Because township officials spent at least $17,000 to deploy 250 police officers as a precaution during Hale’s Saturday night appearance, library trustees may vote September 24 to revise policies so that controversial speakers would have to foot the bill for additional security should law enforcement be called upon to protect their use of the SDTL meeting room, board member Debby Miller told American Libraries."

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2002

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• Martin Memorial Library in York, Pennsylvania (January 14)

  • ​​White-Rights Speech in Pennsylvania Library Triggers Violence; 25 Arrested | American Libraries
    "The white-supremacist group World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) is threatening a lawsuit against the Baltimore County (Md.) Public Library for denying the December 14 meeting-room reservation made for an appearance by group leader Matt Hale. “This particular group has visited other libraries throughout the country. There are usually situations of the police having to be involved, of violence,” BCL Director James H. Fish explained."

  • In 2002, protests prompted by hate group's visit turned violent on York streets | York Daily Record
    "Streets surrounding Martin Memorial Library were barricaded, and hundreds of police in riot gear turned out. A state police helicopter hovered overhead. Police snipers and lookouts were stationed on roofs overlooking the area authorities feared could soon become a war zone. [...] It was the city's unfortunate legacy of 1969 that prompted the visit from Matt Hale, leader of the World Church of the Creator, a white supremacist group Hale runs from a bedroom in his father's house in East Peoria, Ill. The church is a church in words only. It does not espouse any religious beliefs; its beliefs begin and end with the supremacy of the white race. Its goal: To spark a racial war. His visit attracted a coalition of hate groups, from the National Alliance to the Eastern Hammerskins. [...] Later, one of the fleeing white supremacists hit several people with his pickup truck as he sped into a crowd on Mason Avenue. And a little girl was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Her identity and condition were not known. And even later, as the event wound down, a skinhead pulled a gun on some protesters"

  • "Never Again": The Development of Modern Antifa, 1945-2003 | Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook
    "As Hale spoke to a group of seventy inside the town's library, a crowd of his supporters, including Baltimore Hammerskins waving Nazi flags, were separated from antiracist counter-protestors by a line of riot police. As a young anarchist from New Jersey recounted, the antiracists were lobbing snowballs at the Nazis. When the police attempted to shift their line, a hole opened up and the antiracists burst through, triggering a melee. The Argentine anarchist Luís (who would join the German antifa movement a few years later) had journeyed to York with his comrades from the Boston local of NEFAC (North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists). He recounted how 'we managed to build a spontaneous tactical alliance with local young kids of color from the neighborhood' who showed the antiracists an alleyway to go around the police to reach the fascists as they were leaving. Masked antiracists busted the windows and lights of the Nazi's cars and police struggled to respond to the 'pitched street fights.' One Nazi plowed into a group of antiracists with his pickup truck, carrying one of them on its fender for nearly twenty feet. Twenty-five people were arrested, including the truck driver" (pg. 72)

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• Chicago Public Library (February - March 6) 

  • Chicago Public Library Denies Meeting Room to Anti-Semitic Group​ | American Libraries
    "[There were] “numerous misrepresentations and omissions” in the group’s application, including its characterization of the event as a meeting by the “European Historical Society” that would “discuss historical issues from the middle ages” as well as provide an “in-depth look at the classical age of history and its effect on our times.” [CPL Commissioner Mary Dempsey] contrasted that with Hale’s own March 6 announcement that gave the title of the talk as “Jewish Ritual Murder: How and Why Jews Have Sacrificed Non-Jewish Children as Part of Their Religion.”"
     

• Tabb Library in Yorktown, Virginia (May 4)

  • ​Police Ensure Peaceful Supremacist Meeting in Virginia | American Libraries
    [Trigger Warning in the article for police and white supremacy apologism]
    In this case, the WCOTC had a two-hour long rally in the library meeting room while they were guarded by 170 police officers with riot gear. (The entire library needed to close down for this meeting, indicating that the desire to organize in the library was not only prioritized over community safety, but was prioritized over literally every other community member which might need to access library materials or services.) 40 white supremacists, including many racist skinheads, more than a dozen sheriff’s deputies, and 11 journalists watched Hale's speech. Police didn't allow anyone else to park they didn’t allow anyone to park within a mile of the library, and kept anti-racist protestors at a distance. In prioritizing the speech of nazis, the library contributed to the silencing of people of color and other anti-racist community members.  

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• Lucius Beebe Memorial Library in Wakefield, Virginia (September 14)

  • ​Wakefield Remembers 2002 White Supremacy Gathering in Wake of Charlottesville | NBCUniversal Media
    "The group, known then as the Church of the Creator, reserved a public meeting space in the Lucius Beebe Memorial Library in Wakefield. Their racist chants, Nazi salutes and messages of hate are remembered by all who were there to witness it. [...] “We’re still fighting this fight. It’s shocking,” Ann McGonigle Santos, a current member of the Board of Selectmen said. “And to not have a national leadership that is embracing the fight that our little town of Wakefield did in 2002 is also shocking.”"

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• Baltimore County (Md.) Public Library (December)

  • ​Supremacists Threaten to Sue Baltimore County Library | American Libraries
    "The white-supremacist group World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) is threatening a lawsuit against the Baltimore County (Md.) Public Library for denying the December 14 meeting-room reservation made for an appearance by group leader Matt Hale. “This particular group has visited other libraries throughout the country. There are usually situations of the police having to be involved, of violence,” BCL Director James H. Fish explained."

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​Note: In late 2002, Matthew Hale threatened to assassinate a federal judge. In March-April in 2004, the three-week trial on charges of solicitation of murder began in federal court. In April 6, 2005, US District Court Judge James Moody imposed a 40 year sentence on Hale and stated: "I consider Mr. Hale to be extremely dangerous and the offense for which he was convicted to be extremely egregious." 

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