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Goodness and Gracious
by Billy Roper
21 September 2004
The White Heritage Days Festival in Scottsboro, Alabama, which evolved into a
memorial event for Pastor Butler when he passed away the week before, was
a bittersweet experience. There were a lot of children present, as this had
been advertised as a family-friendly event, and their shrieks of glee and
laughter as they played football in the grassy field, took pony-rides, and
competed in the raucous pig-chasing contest reminded me of how much Pastor
Butler loved children. I kept looking around at all the people who I had last
seen when we were all together with Pastor Butler at the Aryan Nations Congress
just a few months ago. Many of them had known Pastor Butler longer than I had,
but I was lucky enough to have been with him in Montgomery, when he stood
outside the S.P.L.C. offices and proclaimed to Morris Dees that he had not been
defeated. I was lucky enough to march behind him as he rode through the
streets of Coeur D'Alene, showing the anti-White haters that they had not
driven him out of town, as they had claimed they had. And, I was lucky enough
to have a few serious and substantial conversations with him, just the two of
us, when we had stood together in Arizona, Tennessee, and Kansas. Here we were,
gathered once again in camaraderie, and amidst the pro-White vendors, the arts
and crafts displays of soaps and herbal remedies and woodworking and crochet,
the grills barbecuing free food for everyone, I kept looking around for Pastor
Butler. I kept expecting to see him seated in the shade with a White child or
two playing at his feet. I kept looking, but he was not there. It was only
through the perfect, cloudless warm Hitler weather we enjoyed in the wake of
the passing hurricane, that his presence was really felt the most. During the
speeches later in the evening, the headcount of those present was between
ninety and one hundred. Klan groups from Georgia, Alabama, Florida,
Mississippi, and Tennessee were present, as were skinheads and independent
Identity folk, and of course Aryan Nations and White Revolution members from
all over the country. A lot of good contacts were made, new members were signed
up, literature was passed out, business cards and e-mail addresses were
exchanged, just like always. But somehow, when the dozens of assembled
Klansmen fired up the three massive crosses in the clear Alabama night sky, and
the Swastika blazed in their wake, it felt different, like a Viking funeral.
From Huntsville east on I-72 through Alabama, families of lemmings clogged the
median and the shoulder of the road, their made-in-China U.S. flags ready to
flap spastically. They had heard that King George II might pass through with
his royal motorcade on the way down to the gulf for a photo op where he could
make sympathetic clucking noises at hurricane victims. Most of them, like most
people everywhere, had never seen a Great Man before, except on t.v. or in the
movies, portrayed by their favorite actor. They were excited at this
opportunity of a lifetime, for them. I couldn't help but think how fortunate I
have been in my lifetime, to have met several Great Men.
Of course, Great isn't a superlative of Good. A lot of Great men aren't very
Good, and a lot of Good people never achieve Greatness. Pastor Richard Butler
was a rare type, a man who embodied both Goodness and Greatness. He was Great
because he eschewed luxury, he sacrificed wealth and fame from his inventions
and aeronautical patents, to serve his people. He was Great because for
decades he stood firm against the enemies of our race, and no matter what they
did to him, or what they took from him, he never wavered or surrendered. But
he was Good because throughout thirty years of movement intrigues and slander
and infighting, he never took the low road, he was never divisive or spiteful,
and he almost never had anything bad to say about anyone who was White. He was
a Greater and a Better man than me, and than almost anyone else I can think of,
too.
In fact, if he had any fault, it may have been that he was too generous, too
open-hearted, too sympathetic to any White person who asked for his help. What
a thing to say, that this was a man's worst fault. Kindness to his own kind,
self-sacrifice and generosity. Too much love for his race. Too open-hearted.
We should all have such faults.
When I got home I found out that another friend of mine, Bill Stidham from
Tennessee, had passed away that weekend. Bill and I stomped a lot of ground
together, from the Israeli and German Embassies in D.C. to anti-immigration
demonstrations in Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and beyond. He was a former
member of the National Alliance, and a current member of White Revolution.
Bill left behind a wife and sons and grandchildren, and he will be sorely
missed by all who knew him. I had spoken to him a week ago on the phone, and
he was really looking forward to the White Heritage Days festival, to getting
together again. I had wondered why he didn't make it. Now I knew. Bill
Stidham and Richard Butler's struggles are over. Their work for our race is
done. They've done their part. How about you? If you're not dead, what's
your excuse?
Until next time, this is Billy Roper reminding you, that White Revolution is the only solution.
BILLY ROPER
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Mr. Roper is chairman of White Revolution.
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