Topeka ? An hour before the start of National Socialist Movement’s much-publicized White Unity Rally here Saturday, Brian Conn, 37, was looking for the best place to stand.

He wanted to be able to see and hear the neo-Nazis, soon to be perched atop the south steps of the Capitol. But he also wanted to hear and support the hecklers.

“I’m here because I figure this is as close I’ll ever get to the ‘Jerry Springer Show,'” he said, half chuckling while tugging on his black T-shirt, which bore the name of his favorite rock band, the long-defunct “Dead Kennedys.”

“These people are something else,” he said, referring to the rally’s organizers, the Minneapolis-based National Socialist Movement.

“You may not like the way things are now, but they’d be incredibly worse if these guys were in charge.”

A few minutes after 1 p.m., about 20 National Socialist Movement members  almost all of them dressed in black pants, brown shirts, black ties and red armbands adorned with black swastikas  stepped out from the Capitol’s ornate second-floor doors.

Most were holding either a red, white and black Nazi flag or a sign. One of the signs read “Hitler Was Right,” another “White Power.”

For the next 2 1/2 hours, movement leaders screamed like professional wrestlers into a lone microphone attached to a pair of crackling speakers.

Above them, Gov. Bill Graves had arranged to have a banner hung that read “Kansas Values Ethnic Diversity,” in keeping with a proclamation he’d issued that morning.

The banner angered the third speaker, the Rev. Matt Hale, whose Illinois-based World Church of the Creator calls itself “the fastest growing White racist and anti-Semitic church in America.”

“This governor,” Hale said, pointing to Graves’ name on the banner overhead, “will one day pay for this with his life.” He called Graves a traitor to his race.

Hale and his cohorts are convinced that integration and tolerance are killing America, the latest evidence, they say, being the influx of Hispanic immigrants.

“Since coming to Kansas, I’ve noticed a lot of Mexican invaders,” Hale said. “They should have been shot at the border.”

Other speakers mocked calls for blacks to be paid reparations for slavery.

“Reparation? Well, then why not equal rights for a horse? Horses built America, too,” shouted movement commander Jeff Schoep. “And then, yeah, how about equal rights for chimpanzees?”

Another speaker said blacks should be barred from serving on juries, and Jews should not be allowed to practice law.

Tim Bishop, a movement member who lives in Hutchinson, said he’d grown sick and tired of minorities pressing for equal treatment.

“They talk all the time about equality,” Bishop said. “But all we ever see is inequality, inequality, inequality. White men are sick of all the lies.”

‘Some things haven’t changed’

Richard Atkinson Jr., Topeka, is old enough to remember the civil rights demonstrations of the 1950s and 1960s.

“I’m glad I came,” said Atkinson, who is black. “Hearing this today helps me realize that no matter how far we’ve come, there are still people who feel this way. It reminds me of how hateful things used to be.

“And it tells me that compared to the 1950s and 1960s, some things haven’t changed all that much.”

Atkinson, who was holding a sign that read “Hate is Not a Topeka Value,” stood behind a section, cordoned off with orange plastic fencing, for those wanting to protest the neo-Nazis’ presence.

Though he remained calm, others did not.

About 50 determined college-aged protesters shouted obscenities and made obscene gestures throughout the rally.

“Hi, Daddy, it’s me, your daughter  don’t you act like you don’t know me,” a young black woman shouted when one of the neo-Nazis stressed the importance of maintaining racial purity.

She declined to identify herself.

George Schultz, a senior at Kansas University, held up a homemade sign that read “The Ghost of John Brown will Haunt You, Hooded Man.”

“I wanted them to know the ghost of John Brown  the anti-slavery activist during the Civil War era  was right behind them in the Capitol,” Schultz said, referring to the famous John Steuart Curry mural in the Capitol that depicts Brown, armed with a Bible in one hand, a rifle in the other, presiding over the start of the Civil War.

“I wanted them to think about that,” Schultz said.

Julia Davis, a student at Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo., had made a sign, too. It read “Jesus was a Liberal Jew.”

“These people offend me,” she said, motioning toward the neo-Nazis.

‘Kansas is not about hate’

Across the street from the Capitol, the Kansas State Conference of Branches of the NAACP, held a rally of its own.

“We are here making a statement today that all of us are citizens of these United States, and we will not accept hate” said NAACP conference president Jesse Milan.

“Kansas is not about hate,” said Milan, who was Lawrence’s first black public school teacher, hired in the late 1950s. He now lives in Kansas City, Kan.

The rally featured more than a dozen speakers, many representing NAACP chapters from around the state.

“We do not share the views of those hate-mongers across the street,” said Henry Gueary, president of the NAACP chapter in Olathe. “We believe in love over hate, not hate over hate.”

“They are the product of fear and ignorance,” said Doug Wood, a member of the Johnson County Commission, shortly before leading the group in a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.

Law enforcement officials estimated both rallies drew about 350 participants. Others put the number of anti-Nazi demonstrators alone at 600.

About 20 demonstrators  all white men  appeared to support the neo-Nazis, freely chanting “Zieg Heil” and “White Power” when cued.

James Ludacka, who lives and works in Scandia, said he was a lieutenant in the National Socialist Movement. He shared the speakers’ anger.

“The government wants my two teenage sons to go fight in Afghanistan,” Ludacka said. “Why should they do that when the enemy  the real enemy  is right here on the street.

“The real enemy is the government. The whole world is messed up and it’s the government’s fault  look, you don’t kill a rattlesnake by cutting off its tale, you cut off its head. And the head is in Washington, D.C.”

For real

Aside from a few ringing ears, both rallies ended without incident.

“Wasn’t that ridiculous?” said former Lawrence resident Bob Cutler, standing beside a pink-and-purple banner he’d made out of a bed sheet. It read, “American by Birth, Queer by the Grace of God.”

For a brief moment, Cutler said he found the neo-Nazis entertaining.

“This idea came to me  wouldn’t it be something if these guys were really actors and they were really putting on a show to show the rest us what the Nazis are really like?” he said.

“Unfortunately I don’t think that’s the case. I think these guys are for real.”