Neo-Nazi Church Burns To The Ground In North Dakota

Image by Twitter

By Sam Kestenbaum March 24, 2017

A 108-year-old church recently bought by white nationalist Craig Cobb burned to the ground Wednesday in the rural town of Nome in North Dakota, the Bismarck Tribune reported.

Cobb bought the structure in February and said he planned on dedicating it to a white supremacist group and naming it after President Donald Trump.

Cobb had previously tried to establish all-white enclaves in Nebraska, Kansas and other towns in North Dakota — a project known in white supremacist circles as a “Pioneer Little Europe,” according to the Washington Post.

Fire raging at ND church white supremacist Craig Cobb is buying in Nome, ND. Live report tonight on @WDAYnews at 6.#BreakingNews pic.twitter.com/ifRUO4ORSK

— Kerstin Kealy (@KKealyWDAY) March 22, 2017

Those projects were not successful and it also seems that this one was also stymied, though it is still unclear what caused the fire.

Cobb told KVRR Local News on Thursday that he bought the church with plans to give it to the Creativity Movement, a white supremacist-styled religion of which Cobb is an adherent.

Though Trump is not affiliated with the Creativity Movement, Cobb said he wanted to name it after Trump dubbing it “President Donald J. Trump Creativity Church of Rome.”

“Not Nome. Rome,” Cobb said, “a little play on history there, you see.”

The Pioneer Little Europe is a concept that “envisions consolidating white people in racially homogeneous communities to push out other ethnic groups,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected]

Sam Kestenbaum is a contributing editor and former staff writer for the Forward. Before this, he worked for The New York Times and newsrooms in Sana, Ramallah and Beijing. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.

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