A neo-Nazi group staged a rally Saturday in Belleville, Illinois, the site of the schoolbus beating that prompted radio host Rush Limbaugh to call for segregated busing. Members of the National Socialist Movement waved placards urging police to file hate crimes charges against two black students who were caught on videotape beating a white student aboard a school bus headed for Belleville West High School.
“Wake up white America!” one protester urged. Participants carried signs saying “It was a hate crime.”
Police have charged two boys, aged 14 and 15, with felonies over the incident, but found no evidence of hate crimes, according to the Fox affiliate in nearby St. Louis.
Opponents of Saturday’s protest far outnumbered supporters. The Belleville News-Democrat reports that opponents of the protest gathered at a nearby parking structure and shouted down the speakers with calls of “Go home!” Story continues below...
Videotape of the Sept. 14 beating caused a stir in the right-wing news media, with the Drudge Report playing it as its top story for an entire day.
“In Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,’” radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said of the incident.
“We need segregated buses,” Limbaugh asserted, though he later said the statement was a joke.
Jason Bonn, one of the protest organizers, wrote on the National Socialist Movement’s Web site that the police had reneged on their promise to allow the protest to continue until 3 p.m., saying authorities had “Jewed” the protest on time.
“The police knew we were coming and just wanted to make sure we weren’t changing the location of the rally,” Bonn wrote. “Thinking back now as I write this, how funny would it have been if I would have called the media and did just that? There [sic] going to jew us on time.”