White supremacists and anti-racism activists clashed this past weekend in York, Pennsylvania as Matt Hale, leader of the virulently anti-Semitic and racist World Church of the Creator, held a recruitment drive in a meeting room at the local public library.

The gathering of white supremacists spawned an outdoor protest that led to numerous arrests and clashes with police. More than 60 supporters gathered inside the Martin Memorial Library, where Hale delivered a rambling hourlong speech calling for "the advancement of white people."

The Jan. 12 meeting attracted both supporters and detractors of Hale's racist and anti-Semitic message and prompted a series of violent encounters between the two groups. A standoff between about 70 racists who had been unable to enter the library and anarchist protestors lasted for nearly two hours, with riot police keeping the groups separated in an alleyway adjacent to the library building.

Tensions heightened, however, when the racists returned to their vehicles in the library's main parking lot. There, protestors began to shower the cars with rocks and pieces of cement and attacked the cars with clubs as the racists attempted to leave.

One truck driven by a Hammerskin member ran a gauntlet of anarchists, and struck one trying to escape. In another ugly incident, a Skinhead trapped in a surrounded vehicle displayed a handgun and then was able to drive away.

Two innocent bystanders stopped at a red light were mistakenly branded as racists, and were beaten, while their truck was pelted with rocks. For several hours, bands of anarchists wandered the downtown looking for any racists still in York.

Police reported 25 arrests, mostly for disorderly conduct. Several people were jailed. The Associated Press reported that a news photographer for the York Dispatch was slightly injured when anti-racism demonstrators threw concrete at him as he photographed the violence.

Hale said he chose the small, central Pennsylvania community for a recruitment meeting because of its high profile in race relations. Over the summer police began making arrests in connection with the city's 1969 race riots. Mayor Charlie Robertson, a former police officer, and eight other white men have been charged with murdering a black woman visiting from South Carolina. Additionally, two black men are charged with murdering a white policeman.

Library officials said they believed they could not refuse Hale and his hate group the right to assemble at the public facility, and that any attempt to block the meeting would not hold up in court.

Various groups and leaders from the Anti-Defamation League's Philadelphia Regional Office were involved in coordinating a unity rally about a dozen blocks away from Hale's speech. About 450 people attended the unity event, said Cathy Ash, the Director of the city's Human Relations Commission. The event was designed to offer the community an alternative to the bigoted message of hate groups.

Among the racist groups represented at Hale's meeting were World Church of the Creator, Aryan Nations, National Alliance, Eastern Hammerskins and the National Socialist Movement.