January 1993 and After: White Supremacist Church Leader Moves Church to Florida

Richard “Rick” McCarty, the new leader of the Church of the Creator (COTC—see 1973 and Early 1992 - January 1993), moves the COTC headquarters to Niceville, Florida. McCarty is a professional telemarketer with almost no visibility within the COTC or the larger white supremacist movement. He has a criminal record for running a telemarketing scam in Birmingham, Alabama. He begins his tenure by touting a March 1993 appearance on a television talk show hosted by Sally Jessy Raphael, along with three fellow white supremacists and a small group of black separatists; the two sides engage in angry rhetoric, but little else. In August 1993, McCarty tells a local reporter: “People are finally waking up to the fact that the white man is going to have no country of his own. We don’t have nothing against anybody. We just want to repatriate the blacks and Jews back to their countries of origin.” Reporting McCarty’s words, the Palm Beach Post also states that the COTC has no temple or compound in Niceville, “but it does have a warehouse that holds $500,000 in white supremacist pamphlets, newspapers, and books. They are distributed in all 50 states, and 37 foreign countries, McCarty said.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/1999]