Church of the Creator: Creed of Hate
Ben Klassen, the founder of the Church of the Creator,
was born on February 20, 1918, in
Taurida, Ukraine. When he was six, his family moved to
Mexico, and two years later re-settled in
rural Saskatchewan. Canada. As an adult, Klassen taught
elementary school in Canada, then worked
as an electrical engineer in California. He also worked as a
part-time inventor, reportedly earning a
patent for an electric can opener in 1954.
In 1958, Klassen moved to Florida, where he became a
successful real estate agent. The first
indication of his political views came to light in 1965,
when he was elected as a Republican to the
Florida State Legislature. At the time, he had campaigned
against busing and the federal government
_conventional conservative positions of the day. James Eddy,
a GOP leader in the Florida House at
the time, said of Klassen, "He was a good legislator....
Most of his votes were well-reasoned."
After his legislative district was reapportioned by
court order, Klassen ran unsuccessfully for state senator in
1967. He next served as Florida chairman of Alabama governor
George Wallace's 1968
independent presidential campaign. (Wallace was, of course,
leading segregationist figure at the
time.)
Concurrent with his brief involvement with the
democratic process, Klassen at the time was
closely affiliated with the ultra-right John Birch Society;
in 1966 he was introduced at the Society's
eighth annual dinner by the group's founder and leader,
Robert Welch. He later donated $1000 for a
lifetime membership, and opened a Birch-affiliated American
Opinion Bookstore.
Klassen's lurch ever-rightward became even more
apparent, however, by the end of the decade,
when he accused George Wallace of intentionally courting
African-American support, terming it "a
complete betrayal of what he represented." He also later
denounced the John Birch Society as a
"smokescreen for the Jews."
The
original plaintext version
of this file is available via
ftp.
[
Index ]
Home ·
Site Map ·
What's New? ·
Search
Nizkor
© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012
This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and
to combat hatred.
Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.
As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may
include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and
provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist
and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.
The Creator of The Church of the Creator