Judd Blevins, a city commissioner in Enid, Oklahoma, marched in the 2017 white nationalist Unite the Right rally. Now he faces a recall vote.

The photo of Judd Blevins was unmistakable.

In it, Blevins, bearded and heavyset, held a tiki torch on the University of Virginia campus, on the eve of Unite the Right, a 2017 coming-together of the nation’s neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.

Connie Vickers had found the photo online along with others showing Blevins marching alongside an angry mob — a crowd of men recorded throughout the night spitting and shouting “Jews will not replace us!” Vickers had it enlarged at a local print and copy shop. On a January night in 2023, she and Nancy Presnall, best friends, retirees and rare Democrats in a deeply red Oklahoma county, brought it to a sparsely attended forum where Blevins, a candidate running to represent Ward 1 on Enid’s six-seat City Council, was making his case.

They had hoped to get a question in while Blevins was on stage, but settled for confronting him after.

  • otp
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    8 months ago

    Wow. Thanks for the info. Can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m definitely disappointed that those places exist…ed? I hope they don’t exist. But again, I’d be disappointed, but not surprised…

    • Kumatomic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      No problem! My understanding is it’s gone now, hit it’s been a few years since I have been back. I wouldn’t be surprised either.