A Howell History Lesson

http://www.hometownlife.com/HomeTownLife/NewsSearch.asp?pageType=Story&StoryID=78408

NOTE: You need to read the article or live around here to understand most of this.

The above article appeared in our local rag, the Livingston County Press and Argus last Thursday, January 6, 2005.

It has caused a huge media stir, with news desks from Detroit and Lansing  even checking in.

While I am a big believer in free speech and  free commerce, I find it highly distasteful to display such a rage-inducing article in the front window of a storefront on the main drag in a town that has long worked to overcome it's racist past.   I equate it to a decision he would hopefully make to not display that antique three headed dildo he took on consignment.  Why wouldn't you display an antique three headed dildo?  Because it's offensive to almost everyone.

I don't care if Mr. Gray sells Nazi or KKK items in his store.  I agree with him in that it is a part of history.  However, he must be a real dolt to not realize that:

A) Such prominent display will incite many people (or is that what he is hoping for to drive the price up?) and

B) The day he selected to auction this robe just happened to be Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.  If he didn't realize that little fact, he truly is a dolt.  All one needs to do is look at a calendar. (The auction date has since been rescheduled.)

I would also like to reiterate, this robe originated in Florida and came from someone in Saline, Michigan.  Although it ended up in Howell, it has no apparent ties to Howell.

Now, for our history lesson.

Robert Miles

Howell has endured a reputation as a racist place due to one man.  That man would be Robert Miles, pastor of the Mountain Church of Jesus Christ, Christian.  The Church is also known as the Mountain Kirk Church of Jesus Christ,  Christian.

There is surprisingly little biographical information available about Robert Miles.  At least not in any of the mainstream research places I looked.  Here are the bare bones.

Robert Miles grew up in New York City's Washington Heights, in the northern part of Manhattan.  He graduated in 1940 from George Washington High School, coincidentally the same high school Henry Kissinger attended.

He was a very conservative, religious young man who planned on attending the Union Theological Seminary.  It was a well-known secret, however, that the Free French Forces movement had offices above a jeweler's (Cartier to be exact) in New York City and were looking for recruits.  Miles scrapped the Seminary and joined the Free French Forces.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he joined the United States Navy and finished his service in the Philippines.  He married and moved to Michigan.  To Cohoctah township, which is a community north of the town of Howell, proper.                                                                        

NOTE:  I have a friend who lives in Cohoctah and has the post office box that used to belong the the Mountain Kirk Church.  She occasionally receives letters for them, although the church doesn't exist anymore.  One was a badly written missive from an inmate in a New York state prison looking for help overturning his conviction.  Every word he used that started with a "c" he changed to a "k", a la "Konstitution." (Thanks Erin,  for sharing that with me! You know I love knowing details like that.)

Miles worked in the insurance business and indeed, was eventually the head of the Michigan Association of Insurance Executives.  One has to wonder if he ever worked at Citizen's Insurance, which is headquartered in Howell and used to be the largest employer in town. Citizen's is noteworthy for being the first company in Michigan to offer car insurance.  Thanks, guys, a whole lot, I'm sure you dreamed up no-fault as well.

He had always been a super patriot, ultra conservative in his political beliefs.  By all accounts, he was a pretty jolly fellow who hid his darker side extremely well.  The older he got, the more ultra right wing he got.  In 1968, he was looking to support George Wallace in his failed bid for the presidency and Michigan didn't have any sort of formal campaign headquarters for Wallace.

He did find The United Klans of America, who had a local grass roots network for Wallace going in Michigan. Miles had found his place and his calling.

He rose fast through the ranks of the racist group, becoming the Grand Dragon of Michigan (is this akin to Fred Flintstone becoming the Grand Poobah?) .  Over time, he held the position of Imperial Kludd, serving as the chaplain or spiritual leader of the whole lot of racist bigots throughout the country.

Miles' beliefs were rooted in dualism.  He based this on a total misinterpretation of Genesis 6 and thought that this mythical super-race of giants were going to descend from the stars to mate with the most beautiful of earth women to create a sort of uber-race.   White uber-race, of course.

NOTE:  Is that some crazy shit or what?  My baby daddy is an alien.

Also incorporated into his dualism beliefs were the teaching that both Yahwah (the far right wackos'   name for God) and Satan were doing equal battle for the souls of the true master race, the Aryans.

Miles used to boast of how easy it was to get people going whenever he wanted a little media coverage.  He'd just gather some cronies,  throw a lighted creosote soaked cross in a yard and scatter a lot of cigarette butts around.  The media were sure to descend.

In 1971, he was  sent to federal prison for bombing empty school buses in Pontiac, Michigan and assault.  He served six years of a ten year sentence in the federal prisons in Marion and Leavenworth. It should be noted that when he was indicted for sedition in Fort Smith in a separate incident,  along with members of the Order, a.k.a. the Silent Brotherhood, he hired a Jewish attorney from Detroit for his defense.  He was acquitted.   Guess he wasn't that racist when his butt was on the line legally.

He published his newsletter, From The Mountain, until 1989, until his wife's health started deteriorating.  As far back as 1984, Aryan followers could read his sermons on a computer bulletin board, accessible to any bigot with a dial up modem. 

Robert Miles was great buddies with Richard Butler of the Aryan Nations outside of Hayden Lake, Idaho.  In fact, after he performed his sermon at one Aryan National Congress, he performed a rather bizarre religious ceremony I've certainly never seen any sort of pastor do:  He performed the blessing of the guns.

He ran a sort of survivalist camp on his farm, complete with cross burning rallies, for many years.  Hard information of this is sketchy, so take this for what it's worth.  Allegedly, most of the attendees were from out of town, indeed, out of state.   One has to believe, however, that Miles had at least a certain amount of local followers he was able to call to duty on short notice.

Supposedly, the farm has been sold.  I wasn't able to chat up my contact in the local government to verify  who holds the deed and what it is actually used for.

This is the type of history Howell is trying so hard to live down. 

Comments

[Richard Ames]

"I find it highly distasteful to display such a rage-inducing article in the front window of a storefront on the main drag in a town that has long worked to overcome it's racist past."

You make it sound like we are all slaves to our emotions. "Rage inducing"?!? Sounds like a new mental illness. I subscribe to the quaint notion that one must expect others to keep their emotions in check and act like adults. If people cannot behave properly in the presence of "rage-inducing" artifacts, perhaps they should spend a bit of time in jail until they settle down. Consider also: If I can make you change by displaying rage every time I don't like something you do, think of the enormous power over you that you have just handed me. I would learn very quickly to get rage-induced on a fairly regular basis I imagine.

And historical artifacts are often "distasteful". So what? Does this mean that our nanny-state must attempt to shield every potentially offended person from life itself? KKK suits happened. They were (are?) a fact. And I also disagree about the timing. In my mind it couldn't be better. What more effective way to remind people of the importance of leaders like Martin Luther King than to have an item like that prominently displayed. Sure beats the MLK Day Sale at Walmart as a learning exercise. Displaying the KKK outfit sends the message that society must never forgot about the injustices of that period because to forget makes repetiton more likely. That is one of the central values of historical artifacts.

I have no opinion on three-headed dildos ;)

[Darr]

Unfortunately I have long heard from family members, and other "old Howell families" that the KKK presence in Howell does predate Robert Miles. Miles did raise the it to a higher degree, and to a much more organized level. If you were to ask people of my Dad's generation (though until the suburbanization of Howell in the last 10-15 years or so, Dad was considered a newcomer - having only moved to Howell when he married my Mom in 1954)or older, many would disagree with the current party line that those who attended rallies at the Miles complex to be mostly from out of town. People did come from all around for those rallies, and his training camps, but locals were well represented.

When I did my story in high school, I tried to contact Robert Miles to interview him, but he hung up after my first call, there was an expletive involved as well. He was still being reticent with the press and about publicity at that time. He changed his tune a few years later when he started his little sedition scheme. After hearing of my phone call, my Dad and stepmom pretty much forbade me from conacting him further. Geoff J. (the photographer) and I were going to go to his house and try to interview him, but we lost our nerve the first time, and Dad was not happy when he heard about the idea. I also remember somebody on the Main Bore staff that lived near him, but I forget who specifically it was, that freaked out when we said we were going to drive out there. "He has snipers posted on his roof at all times! You'll get shot!" I think that's what initially spooked us.

I also started getting spooked by the resistance I was finding in trying to deal with local authorities to find out info on the town's Klan past. Apparently the Klan paraded through Howell in the 60's, but I found it impossible to find any info on that, either. But my parents remember it happening.

I tried to look at legal records regarding Miles and other Klan incidents, but was refused. Did the whole Journalism 101 threatenign with the Freedom of Information act and everything. Never did get the chance to go that route though, as by that time the nasty phone calls started, so even Mrs. Reinke urged me to cool it. Remember, this was 1983, information was not as readily available, and easily accessed as it is now.

I always thought with more information, and digging deeper, I could have had a better story. But I was 16 years old, after all. And it still won awards, so it must have been okay, but I always thought it felt unfinished. But it did provide me with some interesting adolescent experiences for a sheltered small town girl in the midwest. Going to a Klan rally in Lansing and having Klansmen throw rocks at us (I went with Renee R. and Geoff J.) and a neo-nazi chick pull out a knife when I approached her as the Klan and nazis were run off the Capitol property by the protesters was quite something. And hanging out with the protesters, many of them socialists, was interesting as well. Looking back, I can't believe my Dad let me go.

(pardon any typos and grammatical errors please, it's 4:00 am)

[Sara]

I'd buy the robe and burn it in the street, heh.. (sarcastic)

[Alaina Noble]

Hello Lisa,

I had to go to Howell earlier today for a social function, and I must admit when I told my mother and friend they both immediately told me to "be careful". In case you hadn't figured it out, I'm African-American. On my way home, I decided to perform a google search to see what came of the notorious auction and stumbled across your site. I understand that knowledge certainly trumps fear, so thanks for the history lesson.

I'm not sure if and when Howell will be able to live down its reputation - the black community has not forgotten and continues to pass on fact and fable. And the reality is I'm not sure what Howell can do. I'm not saying I would never move to the community, but realistically I am a 36 year old woman who would feel very uncomfortable if for some reason it became necessary. It's not so much that I would fear for my safety, but that I would be concerned about the well being of my children. My parents were trailblazers and we were one of the first African-American families to move to Canton in 1976. I would not want to subject my children to what I went through. Some of it is really quite humerous, but other things are really quite hurtful and I find I'm going through it all over again educating my Caucasian in-laws. I don't think people mean to create pain, I've found that when someone is the "majority", they don't bother to go outside their comfort zone to educate themselves about the culture of another group. They expect others to conform to their ways instead. This can create hostility.

Anyway, enough of my two cents. This all started because I wanted to give you a quick tidbit of information. "Yahweh" is actually not the far right wacko's name for God, it's Hebrew and is roughly translated Lord God. Kind of ironic that a group who claims to hate the Jews would use their name for God.

Thanks for somewhat renewing my hope for continued progress in Howell and Livingston County as a whole!

Alaina

[Phillip]

Wow, enlightening. Just what I was looking for. I'm looking at the possibility of moving to Howell with my wife and family. From the West side of Michigan, where we live now, you'd still think Howell was the KKK capital of the country.

I figured it was a rumor blown way out of porportion, though it will probably take a few more decades for that urban legend to die.

Thanks for the great research!

[Ben Wilston]

I am 17 years old and recently moved away from howell to the opposite side of the country. I like to say i did most of my growing up there and in my oppinion the more recent generations of kids in Howell are not racist at all. When i moved from howell, a small town, to the city that I live today it was deffinently a culture shock but in no way did i feel any resentment towards the other races that attend my school, or live in my neighborhood. The kids of late that live in howell aren't racist they just know a life where there are only 2 african american students in the whole school. Its not a factor of racism its more of this is the only thing they know, not hate but just the fact that they're arent large amounts of other races living in they'er subdivisions or goin to they'er school. The more recent generations don't dislike other races they just dont know about them if that makes sence.

[Terry Tucker]

How wonderful that Ben tells it like it is in the new generation. Thank the gods things have changed!

I grew up in Howell and worked in my family's downtown office supply business, which the KKK leader Robert Miles frequented. I hated him so much for what he had done, and was angry at my Father for allowing him access to our heart and home (our family business.) My Dad didn't agree with his actions, by any means, but needed customers. At least we didn't xerox his pamphlets! But by meeting him, I learned at a young age that evil can be charismatic. That knowledge has informed me, and thus protected me, ever since. He was a hideous creature, handsome and smiling and yet full of hate and prejudice. I can only hope that the proud little town where I grew up can disassociate themselves from this devil. However, when I read recent reports of the community protesting against a rainbow flag flown by high-school students, I was left wondering... conservatism has it's place, but perhaps the ghost of Robert Miles haunts us still...