Judd Blevins, a city commissioner in Enid, Oklahoma, marched in the 2017 white nationalist Unite the Right rally. Now he faces a recall vote.

The photo of Judd Blevins was unmistakable.

In it, Blevins, bearded and heavyset, held a tiki torch on the University of Virginia campus, on the eve of Unite the Right, a 2017 coming-together of the nation’s neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.

Connie Vickers had found the photo online along with others showing Blevins marching alongside an angry mob — a crowd of men recorded throughout the night spitting and shouting “Jews will not replace us!” Vickers had it enlarged at a local print and copy shop. On a January night in 2023, she and Nancy Presnall, best friends, retirees and rare Democrats in a deeply red Oklahoma county, brought it to a sparsely attended forum where Blevins, a candidate running to represent Ward 1 on Enid’s six-seat City Council, was making his case.

They had hoped to get a question in while Blevins was on stage, but settled for confronting him after.

    • Kumatomic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      Prior to the 80’s it was more of an open affair, but at some point they just put a door with no windows on it and you had to be asked to go into the “heritage room”. Even into the late 90s before it was remodeled.

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        I read this comment a few times, and googled it, but I still don’t know what a closed-door museum or a heritage room is in this context. What are they, and what happens in them? Lol

        • Kumatomic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 months ago

          It was a room full of racist moron paraphilia where they believed they were preserving history although it was set up as a shrine to “The South will rise again” style bullshit. I doubt you will find anything on those search terms since they were just how I described it. I don’t know if such things even existed in other towns, but ours had a room no bigger than 15x15’ enshrined with Confederate, KKK, and even white supremacist paraphernalia. It’s not a part of the towns history it would admit to now.

          • otp@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            Wow. Thanks for the info. Can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m definitely disappointed that those places exist…ed? I hope they don’t exist. But again, I’d be disappointed, but not surprised…

            • Kumatomic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              8 months ago

              No problem! My understanding is it’s gone now, hit it’s been a few years since I have been back. I wouldn’t be surprised either.