1982-1983: White Supremacist Church Moves to North Carolina, Gains Tax-Exempt Status

Ben Klassen, the founder and leader of the Church of the Creator (COTC—see 1973), moves the church from Florida to a large lot in Mulberry, North Carolina, opening a post office box in nearby Otto. He chooses the site because he believes Florida is too dangerous to live in. “I think South Florida is due for a lot of turmoil when bloody fighting breaks out,” he says. “Actually, I expect the financial collapse of the entire country, and blood will be flowing in the streets.” He and fellow COTC members build a personal residence, a three-story church, a small warehouse, and a “school for gifted boys.” Klassen begins calling himself “Pontifex Maximus” of the church, a Latin term meaning “high priest,” and begins writing a newsletter, “Racial Loyalty.” Later in the year, COTC is granted an exemption from state taxes based on its status as a church. [Anti-Defamation League, 1993; Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/1999] In the years to come, the Mulberry site will become a full-fledged “compound.” A September 1992 article in Mirabella magazine will observe that the “seventeen-acre landscaped compound… includes small-arms firing ranges, paramilitary barracks, and other buildings.… Inside a large converted barn that serves as headquarters, church founder and leader, Ben Klassen… sits beneath a large painted portrait of Adolf Hitler, ‘The greatest leader the white race ever had,’ says Klassen.… Since 1990 groups of committed young men have traveled here for extensive political mining under Klassen’s tutelage. The recruits wear white berets or cowboy hats, live in the barracks, and practice shooting with automatic weapons on the firing range. Many are older teenagers. ‘Exceptional boys,’ Klassen calls them.” [Anti-Defamation League, 1993]