Census Sends Klansman to Indian Conference
John Abarr, a long-time Klan organizer in Montana, is working for U.S. Census Bureau. Network Program Director Ken Toole spotted him working at a census-information table at the Montana Indian Education Association conference in Great Falls last month.
Abarr's connections to the Klan are well-established. He has frequently distributed literature by the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a national organization based in Arkansas. In the early to mid-1990s, Abarr had his own Klan group in Montana called the Realm of Montana. Before coming to Montana, Abarr ran a Klan group called the Realm of Wyoming and worked with Wyoming congressional candidate William Johnson, author of the proposed Pace Amendment. The amendment said that only people of European descent should have the rights of permanent U.S. citizens. It failed. In 1997, Abarr was linked to anti-gay fyiers distributed in Bozeman. They were signed by the "Ku Klux Klan Committee for Public Safety."
The local Census office in Great Falls said it had no idea of Abarr's past, and it wouldn't have sent him to do outreach to Native Americans if it had. Abarr had been doing some field work, but not going door-to-door. The only screening done for employees is background checks which flag convictions for felonies. Tim Mack, director of the Great Falls office, said, "Knowing what we know, we're going to keep him working in the office, not out in public."