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WHEN BROOKLYN BASED filmmakers Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker first arrived in Leith, North Dakota to shoot their documentary “Leith, N.D.,” “No Trespassing” signs had just popped up all around town.
“There were these ‘No Trespassing’ signs everywhere,” Nichols told Business insider.
Nichols and Walker flew to North Dakota after reading a New York Times article about the war brewing in Leith between the town residents and a man named Craig Cobb, who was inviting white supremacists from around the country to stay on his swastika flag-adorned properties.
NO WEATHER / Vimeo
“Cobb got to the town over a year before we arrived, and was undetected for about a year,” Nichols explained. “He seemed like just a sort of peaceful, quite, kind of weird guy.”
Most of the residents in the tiny town of 24 thought Cobb was strange. But since he kept to himself, so did they.
The only waves Cobb made were whenever he went around town asking people if they had any land to sell — even properties without any working sewer.
Then in August 2013, town mayor Ryan Schock received a call from the Southern Poverty Law Center alerting him to who Cobb really was — a well-known white supremacist.
“Schock really had no idea what a white supremacist was, he was just kind of confused,” Nichols said. “But once he found out about Cobb on the internet, he started going around and telling people in the town. There is one black resident that lives [in Leith] and Schock wanted everyone to feel safe.”
A “Pioneer Little Europe”
Even after the town was aware of Cobb’s beliefs, a majority of the residents didn’t mind as long as he didn’t stir up trouble.
But stirring up trouble was exactly Cobb’s agenda — on his website, he had Google images of Leith charted off with descriptions of plans to create his personal Aryan settlement.
When the residents of Leith saw the website, they finally understood: Cobb was trying to take over and set up his own “Pioneer Little Europe,” as his supporters dubbed it.
Tensions came to a head on 22 September when Cobb held a rally in town with Jeff Schoep, the leader of the National Socialist Movement. “We have to start somewhere,” Schoep told Reuters at the time.
So if we start in small towns and spread out from there, it’s sort of a test ground in that sense, where if we’re able to get off the ground here, then we’re able to get off the ground in other places.
At the time of the protest, Cobb had already purchased 13 lots, some for as little as $500.
Hundreds of demonstrators (many of them Native Americans from nearby reservations), along with activism group UnityND, descended upon Leith to protest the American Nazi group with signs that read, “No Hate In Our State” and “Don’t let the door KKKick you on the way OUT!”
There were also around a dozen armed state troopers dressed in SWAT team gear, as well as a dozen neo-Nazis on Cobb’s property with a banner that read, “Anti-racist is code for anti-white.”
The sleepy cattle-farming community was completely overrun. That’s when the “No Trespassing” signs starting appearing on every property. Leith residents wanted their town back.
Leith Fights Back
By the time Nichols and Walker arrived in Leith to shoot their documentary, the residents were taking a stand.
Meanwhile, Cobb had invited dozens of white supremacists to squat on his land, with the hope that with their votes he could take over the city council, thus taking over Leith.
Outsiders thought that the town only had two options: let Cobb take over, or dissolve so there would be no city council and the town could be absorbed into the larger Grant County.
But the 24 Leith residents were not going to let that happen. The majority of them had been there all their lives, and did not want to see their town dissolved.
Instead, they created a brilliant legal strategy that would force Cobb and his sympathisers to lose their foothold.
“They hired this legal team that came up with a strategy that would force Cobb or any other people who were likely sympathizers to Cobb to have potable water on each of their properties,” Nichols explained.
A lot of the white supremacists that were coming down were just sitting in Winnebagos on one of Cobb’s properties. The ordinance said that Cobb had 30 days to get everything up to code, knowing that that would be a fairly expensive process. Right after that is when everything sort of fell apart for Cobb.
The Aftermath
On November 16th 2013, Cobb was taken to jail in handcuffs after allegedly “patrolling” around the town with rifles and threatening citizens, according to The Bismarck Tribune.
In February, Cobb pleaded guilty to five misdemeanour menacing charges and one felony terrorizing count as part of a plea deal. He remains in jail and has yet to be sentenced. If a judge accepts the plea agreement, Cobb faces four years of supervised probation and will no longer be allowed to own guns.
“I’ll be so glad to get out of the state,” Cobb told the Associated Press in November. “And I’ll never come back to North Dakota.”
Mayor Ryan Schock told the AP that people in Leith want Cobb to pay for the ordeal he has put the town through. Cobb has sold off his property in Leith, including his house.
Nichols and Walker are currently finishing their documentary, endeavouring to tell both sides of the story from an unbiased viewpoint. They hope to complete it this spring, and focus on the travails of the town as well as the aftermath.
“[Residents are] just totally fatigued, and they’re upset that all of the press about their town is about neo-Nazis and white supremacy,” Nichols said.
“These are people that really don’t want the attention, but they’re happy to get it if it means that people will have an idea of what they’re going through.”
All pics: No Weather Productions
For more information about donating to their “Leith, N.D.” documentary, you can contact the film-makers at noweatherproductions@gmail.com with inquiries. You can also visit their website and Facebook page for more details about the film.
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Closing my account next week :) Received a letter saying they were closing my cashsave account leaving me with only my current. I need both. With the charges etc coming in it gives me great pride to close my account after 17 years and say “F*ck you AIB” :)
There’s apparently a flood of peeps closing their accounts… what gobdaw (or committee) thought this was a good strategy? Probably the same shmuck who thought up the campaign about how Ann Glynn had cracked it all those years ago!
Really??? Good! I don’t think any thought is going into these decisions at all. The banks are not being run like a business anymore. They have adopted the same attitude of “F*ck’em we are the best, we dont need anything crazy like a good service etc” its all falling around them now.
My rule of thumb is anytime I hear Hobbs speak I turn the tv or radio off.
Denmark winds up two banks. Burns the bondholders and the markets love them.
What kind of morons do we have running this country and who the f*ck is advising them?
Unfortunately finna fail decided to turn banking debt into sovereign debt, we can’t do what denmark did without defaulting on our national debt meaning no return to the markets for a long time. God I hate Bertie and the 2 Brians soo bad.
Perhaps Noonan might address where the money given to the banks (more widely) has gone, because it hasn’t been used to get lending going/ write-off customer debts… I heard Eddie Hobbs claim (on Pat Kenny’s radio show last week) that banks have put huge volumes of cash on deposit with the ECB where higher interest can be earned… that wasn’t what the bailout was for, was it? Can anyone shed more light on Hobbs’s claim?
The money is required to pay for Greek feta for baldy Noonan!
Just accept that the money is GONE and when it’s GONE, it’s GONE!!
Amazing that after 4 years of public interest, the banks asset quality and transparency cannot be assured or even quantified. How many millions wasted on consultants, nama etc and still noone really knows how much of a mess is in there.
“No body wants to buy it at present ”
The foresight of this man is astounding he’ll be up for Nobel prize for economics if he keeps this brilliance up
One half of the chuckle brothers at play
Totally agree with you John! Noonan is only interested in collecting as much cash as possible! No long term thinking is going on here! The bastards in government think that if they keep Europe sweet, nothing else matters! They don’t give a shit about people’s living standards! As long as it doesn’t affect the elite! We the common people are only a necessary evil in their eyes. We supposedly own AIB, but you would never know by the way they’ve been allowed to do as they like. Do Noonan and his cronies think that there’s no limit as to what we are prepared to tolerate? It’s disgusting to hear them beg for a yes vote! Oh how I wish enough of us would vote no on Thursday. Can’t pretend I know for sure what would happen to Ireland if this were to happen, but I know that the common people can’t possibly be any worse off! As for being starved of funding, if what our so called leaders are telling us is true, then our only option would be a complete default! I really don’t think our European friends would accept that scenario! As far as I can see, a no vote would almost certainly force Fine Gael/ Labour out of office! I mean how could they possibly continue after all the effort put into getting the people to vote yes?
The recent sunshine has addled his bald head! Well, addled it more than it was!
How many kilos of feta would buy AIB, Mr Noonan?
Bank of Ireland debt is still guaranteed by the taxpayer. That was a condition for private investment.
As far as I know AIB and BOI bought a lot of Irish bonds at a cut rate to make a profit ,,,,with Irish tax payers cash !
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