Olympia group marks 30 years of countering hate, building Unity in the Community

On Aug. 10, 1992, Robert Buchanan Jr., a 17-year-old Asian American teen, was brutally murdered in a downtown Olympia train tunnel. More shocking than the violence was the fact he was targeted for murder by Neo-Nazis.

This was a hate crime intended to terrorize a broad swath of our neighbors because of their race. Olympia residents said, “Not in our town!”

Soon thereafter, a small group launched an anti-hate crime coalition, “Unity in the Community.” Our founding group was diverse both racially and politically, united in a mission to respond to hate crimes and reject all that they mean. We quickly developed a course of action that served as our template for the next three decades.

Often, people who are targeted by hate suffer emotional wounds and financial troubles, along with a profound sense of being isolated. The first step was to contact Bob Jr.’s family to provide critically needed assistance.

Second, we began to advocate in the criminal justice system to ensure that the killers, who were quickly arrested, would be prosecuted as hate criminals. This included getting hate crime laws on the books as well as urging prosecutors and police to use them.

And third, we gathered together a broad range of our community to stand against hate. We held rallies and public forums, and created a strong presence in local media. Speaking out in support of diversity is a powerful antidote to hate.

Since 1992, we’ve responded to many incidents of hate crime and speech, ranging from racist or homophobic graffiti to bias-motivated assaults. Each time, we started by coming alongside victims to support them by offering tangible resources and letting them know they were not alone. We continued to offer legal advocacy as needed to ensure that these incidents are recognized as hate crimes that inflict a broader impact on the community.

Perhaps the most effective work has been to speak out about the destructiveness of hate crime and the need to stand up for people of color, the LGBTQ community and others who have been the targets of hate.

Thirty years later, we’re still on standby to counter acts of hate. In October 2021, an extremist group called Patriot Front defaced the downtown Rainbow Love & Respect Olympia mural, actually filming themselves in the act. The video and related evidence is being used to link them to other anti-LGBTQ hate crimes they’ve coordinated in other states, including an interrupted attack on the 2021 Coeur d’Alene Pride Festival in Idaho.

The Rainbow mural defacement was not an isolated act and Patriot Front is not alone in fomenting bigotry. Across the nation, hate crimes have erupted along the growing fault lines of political polarization, sometimes cheered on by national leaders. Black churches, synagogues and places where people of color shop have been targets in mass shootings by people who left clear trails of their bigoted intentions.

Whether committed by lone wolves or members of White nationalist organizations, these hate crimes gouged deeply into the immediate communities and terrorized people elsewhere who feared they too could be victimized because of their race, religion or LGBTQ identities. Hate leaves deep individual wounds that community support helps to heal.

Polarization and hatred have been accelerated by deteriorating public discourse, but the answer is not to surrender to these darker forces. Our community needs to be prepared to answer each time hate crimes are committed.

History is filled with cautionary tales of ignoring bigotry; anytime social minorities are scapegoated, it’s a warning sign that the rights and safety of all are at risk.

The work continues and we hope to join the next generation of activists in creating even more powerful community responses. We won’t forget Bob Buchanan Jr. and the racist violence that ended his life, nor will we forget how that tragic incident brought us together in 1992 and ever since as needed to support unity in the community.

Anna Schlecht and Reiko Callner are co-founders of Unity in the Community.