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Tancredo camp denies 'hate group' claim

Anti-racism center berates S.C. event

M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 13, 2006 at midnight

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Rep. Tom Tancredo gave his standard immigration stump speech in South Carolina on Saturday. There were Confederate flags in the room, and he joined audience members in singing the Southern anthem Dixie.

But Tancredo's office on Tuesday vehemently denied that the gathering was "a hate-group event," as the anti-racism group Southern Poverty Law Center charged.

In an online article widely circulated on the Internet on Tuesday, law center officials cite an online invitation (.htm) to the event by the South Carolina chapter of the League of the South.

But according to Tancredo's office, the Saturday gathering was organized and sponsored by Americans Have Had Enough Coalition, which backs Tancredo's anti-illegal immigration stand and traditional conservative causes. Tancredo's longtime aide, Jacque Ponder, is on its board.

An official at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia, where Saturday's event was held, confirmed that Richard Hines, whose wife is also on the nonprofit group's board, paid to rent the space for the event.

The League of the South, which adamantly disputes its "hate group" label, promotes Southern heritage and sometimes describes its views on issues such as immigration in racial or "ethnocentric" terms.

Tancredo's trip to South Carolina was part of his flirtation with the presidential race.

Tancredo spokesman Carlos Espinosa said the law center intentionally was distorting the online invitation to discredit Tancredo.

The South Carolina League of the South "is very racist and a horrible group that is desperately trying to seem relevant by attaching themselves to an event they had nothing to do with," Espinosa said.

Garland McCoy, president of Americans Have Had Enough Coalition, said the League of the South had nothing to do with the event.

"They're incorrect," McCoy said. "It was not their event. It was our event."

An attorney for the League of the South's national organization did not know about the South Carolina controversy, and state representatives did not return numerous phone messages.

The group has spent several years fighting the Southern Poverty Law Center's racism charges, and members even mounted a protest outside the group's Alabama headquarters.

The law center had a researcher attend the Tancredo event undercover, said Heidi Beirich, deputy director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project.

"We have no indication (Tancredo) knew exactly who he was talking to. . . . I think the Confederate flag should have been a big ol' stopper for him."

Espinosa said Tancredo was aware that the audience included members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and Civil War re-enactors in Southern garb. When they began singing Dixie, Tancredo joined in, Espinosa said. "These aren't racist people who spew out hate. These are just people remembering and cherishing their past," Espinosa said. "Tom thought it would be rude not to take part in it."