Barely two weeks after more than 500 protestors showed up for a white-supremacists’ meeting at Chesterfield County (Va.) Public Library’s Chester branch, the World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) has booked yet another Virginia library community room. This time, the group has reserved for November 9 the meeting room of the County of Henrico Public Library’s North Park branch, located in a predominantly African-American community.
“I really think the point of it is this group wants to get notoriety,” concluded Frank Thornton, a member of Henrico County’s Board of Supervisors. “I think any individual has a right to meet in our facility,” County Manager Virgil Hazelett told the October 15 Richmond Times-Dispatch, adding, “It’s a constitutional right, which is what this government is about.”
In Chesterfield County, where security for the WCOTC’s September 21 meeting cost more than $30,000, officials decided October 16 in a closed meeting that they could not block Virginia WCOTC leader John King from booking the Chester Library meeting room for January 4 if he complies with a policy revision limiting meeting-room requests to “locally based” individuals. King claims to have already found a Chesterfield County resident to reserve the room, the October 17 Times-Dispatch reported.
Posted October 21, 2002.