Anderson, California is featured in Not In Our Town Northern California: When Hate Happens Here.

January 2004 - When an African-American resident of the small Northern California town of Anderson woke one winter morning to an 8-foot-tall burning cross on her lawn, neighbors, city and church leaders quickly organized in support of her and her young family.

The flames came within just feet of the victim's house, and had the burning cross fallen, it very likely would have set her house afire. "You face this cross and you know somebody has been that close to you, [trying to] intimidate you and frighten you," says longtime Anderson resident Isaac Lowe, who empathized with the African-American family who was targeted. "It's a horrible feeling and it has a terror with it like no other."

Worried that the intimidating act would force out good citizens of Anderson away, city leaders and local law enforcement immediately appealed to the victim and her family to stay. They wanted to send another message to the perpetrators of the hateful act.

Anderson area residents had learned the lesson of acting quickly against hate, after a deadly hate crime almost five years before in Redding, California, just ten miles up the road from Anderson. In July 1999, two of Redding's most prominent citizens, Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, in a gay couple, were shot and killed to death in their home. In response to the murders, the all-volunteer organization Shasta County Citizens Against Racism, or SCCAR, called on the greater Shasta County community to come together in a public forum to memorialize their friends lost to hate violence. It was then, for the first time, the community, including local officials and church leaders, publicly recognized their gay and lesbian neighbors.

Like the rest of Shasta County, Anderson is a deeply religious community, evident by the four pages of churches listed in the local telephone book. It is also a predominantly white community, with African-Americans making up less than one percent of the rural county's population. Isaac Lowe, the eighty-two-year-old founding president of SCCAR, settled in Shasta County in the early 1940's. She is often referred to by other SCCAR members as "our own Rosa Parks." A retired county welfare worker, she isn't shy about speaking out about the problems in her community. Lowe says the cross burning wasn't the first act of racial hatred she's seen in Shasta County.

In a separate incident just two weeks before the cross burning, the family also found pieces of wood with the words "Burn Nigger" and "SS" on them. The mother of the young family did not want to appear on camera out of concern for the safety of her children. The victim's grandmother, Mae Lois Turner, knows first hand the paralyzing effect such blatant racism can have on a person. Turner was one of the first African-Americans to work as a nurse in the local hospital.

"You can't go around living in fear every day, you know that?" says Turner. "You'd never get any rest. You'd be a nervous wreck. And I refuse to do it. And I refuse to allow my children or my children [to do it.] I don't want them to live that way."

Within a week of the cross burning attack, 600 community members joined the local mayor, police chief and members of the Shasta County Citizens Against Racism in a community march against hate. It was an awe-inspiring response by the small community of 10,000, on a day marked with a downpour of rain.

The campaign against hate in Anderson didn't stop with the march. Six months later the city took a further step by declaring Anderson a hate-free zone, and visitors entering Anderson from all directions see eight new official city limit signs that say, "Anderson, California: No Room for Racism, Hate or Violence."

"[The signs] help to keep us accountable and it's a constant reminder to people as they come into the city that Anderson is a community where hate, violence and racism is not acceptable," says Anderson Mayor Les Baugh at a June 16, 2004, dedication ceremony.

[Watch the Video 56k | 200k]
Watch a video clip from an interview with Anderson Mayor Les Baugh about his reaction to the cross-burning in his town.

Anderson Police Chief Neil Purcell, who helped supervise the cross burning investigation, was aware the incident could be prosecuted as a federal offense. He immediately contacted the FBI, and the joint investigation with Anderson police led to the arrest of 22-year-old Chris Easley and a 16-year-old whose name has been withheld from the public. Easily lived down the street from the African-American family he targeted. In October 2004, Easley was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison, while the juvenile who was prosecuted separately was sentenced to 12 to 18 months of incarceration in May 2004

With the overwhelming support of the community and her family, the African-American mother whose house was attacked has decided not to move. She wants to stay in Anderson."I think it's very important to stand up for your rights and for what you believe or just for who you are," she says.

Update: June 2004
Just days after Anderson officials unveiled the new city limits sign with the motto "No Room for Racism, Hate or Violence," more than 150 Anderson residents were disturbed to find hateful white supremacist literature had been distributed on their drive ways and lawns. A swastika-adorned flier recommending that racists "consider murder" as the smart alternative to cross-burnings was folded inside rolled copies of White Aryan Resistance, a Fallbrook, California-based newspaper. Anderson Police Chief Purcell was singled out in the flyer, along with other local officials and law enforcement, and labeled a "race traitor" for his part in the cross burning case. The hate literature was protected by the First Amendment, but some community members decided to come together to walk their neighborhoods, and collect and throw away the newspapers. Community leaders also spoke out against the hate speech in an editorial in the local newspaper Record Searchlight.

Read the editorial coauthored by Anderson Mayor Les Baugh, Rose Gabaeff of the Anti-Defamation League, and Tom O'Mara, of the Shasta County Citizens Against Racism. (at Redding.com)

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