A Delaware couple who believe racial and ethnic minorities should be expelled from the country have received state approval for their neo-Nazi group to adopt a rural roadway.
They didn't get to put the word "Nazi," as they desired, on two Adopt A Highway signs the Delaware Department of Transportation recently erected along a 2-mile stretch of Cedar Grove Road in Sussex County, Del., settling for "Freedom Party."
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Over the summer, DelDOT blocked Edward McBride III's application under the name of the National Socialist Freedom Movement Nazi Party. Citing concerns that the state could be seen as endorsing a hate group, DelDOT also rejected McBride's counteroffer to have an abbreviated sign carry the name "NSFM88 Nazi Party."
"His request to have the words 'Nazi Party' displayed on a state sign was denied because DelDOT chose not to associate the state with the term and its generally understood philosophy of advocating the denial of civil rights," spokesman Geoff Sundstrom said.
McBride, 24, turned to his wife, Katelyn McManus, to submit an application under her name for the road to be adopted by the "Freedom Party."
"Sure enough, the application was approved without a single problem," McBride said.
DelDOT reserves the right to edit the names on Adopt A Highway signs. Sundstrom said this is the first time agency officials recall a "hate group" wanting to participate in the volunteer litter-control program.
One DelDOT official tried to steer the man away from participating with an Aug. 25 letter the agency released last week."Of course, you remain free to exercise other opportunities to seek publicity for this entity and your litter control activities, in ways that do not suggest that the State is endorsing this entity," DelDOT Maintenance and Operations Director Joseph Wright wrote to McBride.
DelDOT's Adopt A Highway program is one of the state's most popular community-service initiatives. At the end of 2010, there were 744 groups cleaning up adopted stretches of state highways. Groups are required to clean their designated roadways at least three times a year.
McBride said he intends to clean up the ditches along Cedar Grove Road his days off from a job as a cook at a local restaurant. "I plan to get out there and take care of my obligation," McBride said.
McBride is commander of the National Socialist Freedom Movement Nazi Party, which is a spinoff group from the National Socialist Movement, the largest neo-Nazi organization in the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League. He said he, his wife and another man are the group's only members in Sussex County, but that they believe they have 45 members throughout the state.
The neo-Nazi group believes white Christians should be the only race and religion allowed in the U.S. They also advocate closing off the nation's borders from immigrants, ending American participation in free trade with other countries and prohibiting "non-whites" from owning or controlling newspapers.
USA Today