Leith, North Dakota: Protesters rally against neo-nazi plans to turn tiny town into a white supremacist community

Hundreds of demonstrators tued out in a tiny North Dakota town to protest against plans by an American Nazi group to move in and take over the local govement.

The loud but peaceful demonstrators, many of them Native Americans from nearby reservations, made their disgust clear as Jeff Schoep, commander of the National Socialist Movement, and several followers, visited.

The National Socialist Movement is America's largest neo-Nazi organization, founded in 1974 by former members of the American Nazi Party, according to the Southe Poverty Law Center.

Jay Schechter holds a sign while participating in a protest rally outside Craig Cobb's house in Leith

Craig Cobb address supporters inside the Leith Town Hall. Cobb a white supremacist, originally from Canada, has purchased many lots in the tiny town

The group hopes to move enough members into Leith - population 17 - to take over the local govement.

'We have to start somewhere,' Schoep said.

'So if we start in small towns and spread out from there, it's sort of a test ground in that sense, where if we're able to get off the ground here, then we're able to get off the ground in other places.'

But Leith's only black resident is defiant and say's he's staying put. 

Leaders from across the state joined forces in an effort to show the hate groups that they aren't welcome.

'We are deeply disturbed that one of the residents of our small community has invited hate groups to our town and to the state of North Dakota.

'One of these hate groups, the National Socialist Movement, is planning to hold a meeting in our city hall on Sunday afteoon, and raise neo Nazi flags on property around our town,' the town of Leith said in a statement before the planned visit.

'The values of our town include safety and acceptance for everyone. We stand firmly against the bigoted views of this group, and will not be participating in their events.'

Supremacist's paradise: Craig Cobb, 61, has invited dozens of neo-Nazi leaders to Leith to start to haven for racist hate groups

Craig Cobb, a self-described white supremacist, had already bought several homes and properties in Leith when he moved to the town 75 miles southwest of Bismark last year. He had bought at least a dozen properties and given several of them to leaders of major neo-Nazi hate groups.

Often, he paid just hundreds or a few thousand dollars absentee owners who had long ago fled Leith and left their properties in disrepair.

He has grand visions for the town and is determined to revitalize it.

He told National Public Radio: 'It would be extraordinarily beautiful when people enter the town, particularly at night because we will have floodlit flags from both the bottom and the top of all the formerly white nations of the earth.

'We will probably have the National Socialist hunting flag with stag hos and a very small swastika in the center, very discreet.'

Ramshackle: Leith has just 24 residents. It has been in a slow decline for decades. Cobb bought most of the properties for just hundreds or a few thousand dollars

He plans parks and monuments and a municipal swimming pool, all named after white-power activists.

But the Cobb and his white supremacist ilk have one immediate obstacle to their all-white paradise in Leith: Bobby Harper, the town's only black resident.

'I'm not leaving,' Harper told NPR.

'They gotta do something very, very drastic to me to make it unsafe and uncomfortable for me. Right now, I don't see it happening.'

The U.S. National Socialist Movement, America's largest white  supremacist group, is joining forces with Cobb and is calling its members to Leith for a meeting on Sunday and Monday.

'We have every intention of legally assuming control of the local govement,' Socialist Movement leader Jeff Schoep said in a statement.

Cobb moved to Leith from Montana and has purchased about a dozen homes and vacant parcels of land

According to the Southe Poverty Law Center, Cobb wants to set up a 'Pioneer Little Europe.'

In an interview with WXMB-TV in Bismarck, Cobb said he had gotten a lot of offers to buy up land from what he termed like-minded people who believe white people should not be punished for wanting to live near each other.

'It's fine for all these other minorities, but not us,' he said in the televised interview. 'If you merely speak about it, you're going to be defamed in this country.'

Schoep said that the visitors would inspect the new property, raise ceremonial flag poles, and hold a town meeting and a news conference.

'We know that opinion is divided in the town and in the media,' Schoep said in the statement, adding that the trip was 'a symbolic gesture of good will and faith.'

Sheriff Bay had his officers, members of the North Dakota Highway Patrol and others come to Leith yesterday to help in crowd control.