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Neo-Nazi Group Takes Message To Fla. Turnpike

Billboard Remains Despite Complaints

POSTED: Monday, January 5,
UPDATED: 6:23 pm EST January 5,2004

The neo-Nazi club that inspired the Oklahoma City bomber is reportedly advertising for new members on a billboard that stands along Florida's Turnpike in Sumter County despite residents' complaints.

With a plain black lettering and big block letters, the sign appears to mimic the style of the "Got Milk?" advertising campaign, and reads in part: "WHO RULE$ AMERIKA?"

The sign gives the Internet address of the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group based in West Virginia.

"Obviously we don't want people associating Sumter County with this group. I'd be a fool if I wasn't concerned," said Benny Strickland, chairman of the Sumter County Board of Commissioners. "But I don't think we have the power to do anything."

National Alliance billboards were removed in Old Town last April and in Tampa in 2001 after advertising companies found out that the group advocates an all-white, non-Jewish society.

But Jerry Sullivan, president of Micanopy-based Sunshine Outdoor Inc. that put up the sign about 35 miles from Orlando in August, said he had no intention of taking down the sign as long as it is paid for.

"It's free speech. Do you know what free speech is?" he said, adding "I don't believe in Nazis, but no, it don't bother me none. There's no law against it."

Robbie Rogers, Sumter County's director of planning, said that despite numerous complaints received by the county office, advertising for a club -- even an unpopular one -- is not against the law.

"We don't have anything in place that can deal with this," she said

Shaun Walker, Chief Operations Officer for the National Alliance, said the sign's purpose is: "To raise public awareness of the political reality we live in today."

"I'm a white American and we'd like to return the reins of control to white people," he said.

No one from the National Alliance's two Florida chapters in Orlando or Tampa was interested in speaking to reporters, Walker said.

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