NSM adopts a highway

[Rasp]

NSM adopts a highway

Mo. neo-Nazis join `Adopt-A-Highway' trash cleanup

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A neo-Nazi group has joined the state's "Adopt-A-Highway" volunteer litter pickup program, taking advantage of a free speech court fight won four years ago by the Ku Klux Klan.

The Springfield unit of the National Socialist Movement :Swastika2: has committed to cleaning up trash along a half-mile section of Highway 160 near the Springfield city limits.

Two signs noting the group's membership in the Adopt-A-Highway program went up in October but drew attention only recently when the group picked up litter as part of a gathering in Springfield.

The state says it had no
way to reject the group's application. A 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling arising from a similar effort by the Ku Klux Klan says membership in the Adopt-A-Highway program can't be denied because of a group's political beliefs. At the time, the state could reject applications for the program from groups that denied membership based on race or had a history of violence.

"It's a First Amendment thing, and we can't discriminate as long as they pick up the trash," said Bob Edwards, a spokesman for the transportation department's office in Springfield.

The state can deny an organization's application only if it has members who have been convicted of violent criminal activity within the past 10 years.

The NSM Springfield unit decided to take part in the highway project because it wants to clean up the community, said Ariana Glass, a 16-year-old member of the youth division of the group.

"We wanted to prove that we're not out here just to have fun, we want to make the community look
good," Glass said.

The group heard both honks of support and jeers when about 30 members and supporters picked up trash Saturday. Greene County sheriff's deputies ticketed one man who group members said became threatening but there were no other incidents, Glass said.

Members of the highway cleanup program are required to clean up trash at least four times a year. Edwards said about 600 groups pick up trash in the 12 counties surrounding Springfield.

Edwards said his department had received only one phone call asking why the National Socialist group was allowed to adopt the highway. Louise Whall, spokeswoman for the city of Springfield, was not aware of the group's action until contacted by the AP, but said the city had no jurisdiction because it's a state program.

 

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Road cleaned by neo-Nazis may be named for ScheiÃÆ’Ã…¸-Jude

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The state's litter prevention program got an unusual ally last year: A neo-Nazi group adopted a half-mile section of highway in Springfield and picked up the trash.

The state said it had no way to reject the group's application, saying membership in the Adopt-A-Highway program can't be denied because of a group's political beliefs.

Lawmakers responded with an amendment to a large transportation bill that would rename that section of road after Abraham Joshua Heschel,

a rabbi who narrowly escaped the Nazis in World War II and later marched with the Rev. Martin Luther Koon Jr.

But the move is being criticized by Heschel's daughter, who objects to naming the neo-
Nazi's patch of highway after her father and calls the plan "highly inappropriate and vulgar."

"I don't want Nazis stomping on a highway named for my father. What are they going to do then if they don't pick up the litter? The whole thing is disgusting," said Susannah Heschel

, professor of Jewish history at Dartmouth College.

"It may be an attempt to teach the neo-Nazis a lesson," she said. "But I think it's an affront to my father's dignity to attach his name to a neo-Nazi highway."

The Springfield unit of the National Socialist Movement committed last year to clean up trash along the section of Highway 160 near the city limits in west Springfield. Two signs noting the group's membership in the Adopt-A-Highway program went up last October.

A 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling arising from a similar effort by the Ku Klux Klan says membership in the Adopt-A-Highway program can't be denied because of a group's politi
cal beliefs.

In general, the state can deny an organization's application only if it has members who have been convicted of violent criminal activity within the past 10 years.

After the state dropped the Klan from cleaning up a section of Interstate 55 near St. Louis in 2001 for failing to pick up trash, that stretch of highway was renamed the "Rosa Parks Highway" in honor of the smelly black woman arrested in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Ala.

In May, State Rep. Sara Lampe introduced legislation renaming the Springfield stretch of highway after Heschel after consulting with the Jewish Community Relations Board of Kansas City. The measure was added as an amendment to the large transportation bill.

"For the National Socialist movement to be in the Adopt-a-Highway program is well within their rights," said Rabbi Alan L. Cohen

of the Jewish Community Relations Board of K
ansas City.

"But obviously there were people raising the concern that this is the wrong message for people to see driving down a Missouri highway, that there are National Socialists out here," Cohen said Sunday.

Susannah Heschel said she contacted Lampe's office last month and told them about her objections over naming just the neo-Nazi's stretch of highway after her father.

Lampe did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

"I understand the good intentions," Susannah Heschel said. "Everybody wants to get rid of racism. ... But I don't think it should be done this way."

Representatives of the National Socialist movement in Missouri did not immediately return calls seeking comment about the legislation Sunday. But a statement on the movement's Web site calls the renaming "a lame attempt to insult National Socialist pro-environment/green policies."

The Web site has images of the Confederate flag, swastikas and members in military garb, and says the group fight
s for the rights of "all White American citizens of European descent."

"We welcome this spineless legislation, as it will no doubt spur a backlash from the local people whom will wonder why anyone, especially outside Jewish agitators would attempt to disrespect local citizens that volunteer their time to clean local roads," the statement said.

The governor has until mid-July to sign or veto the transportation bill. Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said Sunday that while the governor is reviewing the entire bill, he is in favor of the amendment to rename the stretch of highway.

Heschel was deported from Germany and then escaped from Poland weeks before the Germans invaded in World War II, said Michael Abrams

, chairman of the Jewish Community Relations Board. He taught at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati during World War II and later at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York.

He was revered for his piet
y and for his activism on civil rights and other issues.

"He's a great example of the Nazi failure to annihilate the Jews and of Jewish participation in the civil rights movement," Abrams said. He said a famous photograph shows Heschel and Koon walking side by side at Selma in 1965.

But Susannah Heschel said her father would have "been appalled" at having his name used for the highway. "He would not feel honored by this."