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Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Thursday, July 18, 2002
By Mary Jo Hill
Telegram & Gazette Staff
http://www.telegram.com/news/page_one/racist.html
STERLING– Matthew F. Hale is a 30-year-old violinist who looks like a Young Republican Club member in the photo he posted on the Web.
The clean-cut man wearing a white shirt and tie leads a church devoted to racism.
The Illinois-based World Church of the Creator is among the leading groups attracting young, violence-prone adults into the white supremacist movement, according to one hate expert.
The Rev. Hale and his congregation practice a religion called Creativity, which believes “the creator” is the white race and rejects the idea of gods, angels and devils, according to the group’s Web site.
The church coined the phrase “Rahowa” — a term supporters use as a battle cry for “Racial Holy War.” People of color are called “mud races” by the church. And Rev. Hale’s e-mails sign off with the slogan: “The Jew is through in 2002!”
Last month, people in several Central Massachusetts communities woke up on a Sunday morning to find evidence of the church on their front lawns after a mass distribution of fliers. The group has distributed literature in the past as well.
The blitz sparked a controversy involving the group’s state leader, Tony J. Menear, a 26-year-old Sterling man who has served time in prison for armed robbery.
The Rev. Menear’s parole was revoked after a newspaper reported the recent flier blitz. Rev. Hale claims the state Parole Board gave Rev. Menear an ultimatum to denounce the church or return to prison, and he chose prison.
The group is raising questions about the possible violation of Rev. Menear’s constitutional right to freedom of religion. The state Parole Board has not commented on why his parole was revoked.
A preliminary hearing on the parole revocation is scheduled for today.
(…)
A trial is putting the idea of Rahowa on display in U.S. District Court. Erica Chase, 22, and Leo V. Felton, 32 
, are on trial and charged with conspiracy to build a bomb to use to spark a racial holy war by targeting a Jewish or African-American landmark in Boston.
Court documents have shown that Ms. Chase was a close confidante of Rev. Hale when she lived in Indiana, said Devin J. Burghart, an expert on hate groups who works for the Center for New Community in Illinois. The center is a faith-based initiative designed to revitalize congregations and community for social, economic and political democracy.
And according to The Boston Globe, Ms. Chase’s best friend testified at the trial Tuesday that Ms. Chase regularly wrote and recruited prison inmates for the World Church of the Creator.
(…)
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