Alberta Bair Theater Targeted by Aryan Nations
According to Aryan Nations's website, its Montana office has moved from Polson to Billings. With the new office, the racist group's presence has been increasing in the Billings area, especially around the Alberta Bair Theater.
In January, Aryan Nations's followers briefly gathered outside the theater and slipped literature under the windshield wipers of cars in the theater's parking lot. The ten racists distributed flyers that read "Help protect America's most valuable resource" and pictured three white children sitting near the Aryan Nations logo. The program at the theater that night was called "A Brief History of White Music." The racists were apparently protesting that members of the performing cast were all African American. A woman who said she was one of the racist protesters called the Billings Gazette and said, "It was black people doing ÎA History of White Music.' It just doesn't seem right."
In March, three white supremacists tried to enter the theater during a performance by the Harlem Spiritual Ensemble. They asked the people working the ticket office, "Are there black people in there? Don't they know they're in Montana?" The trio asked if they could enter the theater. When the ticket office refused, the three racists exited the building, but drove around the theater yelling racial epithets at theater personnel and patrons who were standing on the sidewalk.
In both cases, the theater called the police to make sure the area was safe when patrons and performers were ready to leave the building. Patricia Williams, manager of the troupe performing "A Brief History of White Music, said, "The hardest thing was to look the cast in the eye and tell them what happened. They were scared. They want to get out of town."