Back in 1981, the founder of the World Church of the Creator first published "The White Man's Bible," setting a road map to achieve "the tremendous potential of the white race."

To realize that potential, Ben Klassen advised his followers to know their natural enemies, mainly the Jews and all other "mud races."

More than 26 years after Klassen rallied his followers and published his 450-page diatribe, "The White Man's Bible" has met a fate far different than what Klassen likely anticipated before his suicide in the 1990s.

Worms now devour his prose, transforming hateful words into fertile soil. Small curios covered in Klassen's text now frame the faces of Holocaust victims. His books stand clad in ski caps, representing the love and warmth one artist suggests Klassen didn't receive as a child.

Answering an open invitation by the Holter Museum of Art, artists from across the country transformed "The White Man's Bible," along with 11 other titles published by the World Church, into colorful works aimed at stirring civic dialogue and exploring the complexities of equality and justice. The result is an exhibit, "Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate," which will run from Jan. 25 to April 15.

In the process, Klassen's message of hate has given way to one of love and acceptance. At the same time, it still lingers as a dire warning to viewers that hate is a learned behavior.

"If you believe prejudice and hate is learned as a child, then you should also believe you can educate for tolerance, acceptance, respect, and support for social justice," said the exhibit's curator, Katie Knight. "We aren't just teaching our children the content of different subject areas, but also on how to live together."

Knight, an artist and human rights activist in her own right, said the Holter Museum acquired the books last year after a defector from the World Church sold them to the Human Rights Network for $300.

At the time, the disjointed World Church was looking to establish a headquarters in Montana. When the Human Rights Network purchased the books in what amounted to a back-room deal, it effectively eliminated the organization's funding and took Klassen's message out of circulation.

"Like some of the other white supremacist organizations, they thought they could really get a foothold in Montana, Idaho and eastern Washington, where there's a sparse population," Knight said. "The ethnic diversity isn't high in rural areas. They thought they could get critical mass, where they could develop some political power."

Things began turning sour for the World Church after Klassen ended his life. He'd failed to identify his successor beforehand, leaving a vacuum of power within the organization.

Even without its leader, the body of Klassen's work, which included "The White Man's Bible" and "Nature's Eternal Religion," remained in circulation, providing the group an ideological guide that followers could turn to for direction.

But in December 2003 the group's defector called the Montana Human Rights Network with an offer. He held the key to two storage lockers containing 4,000 World Church books written by Klassen. Buying the books from the defector hastened the organization's downfall.

"Floating around, these books provided an ideological touchstone for others out there," said Travis McAdam, research coordinator for the Montana Human Rights Network. "Getting the books out of circulation was a way of helping lessen the impact of Klassen's message."

While the buyout stopped Klassen's message from circulating and led to the Holter Museum's new exhibit, which is set to open next week, it hasn't stopped other hate groups from trying to fill the void left by the World Church.

White supremacists and other like-minded organizations, McAdam said, have always shown periods of ebb and flow in Montana. In the 1990s, neo-Nazi skinheads terrorized a Jewish community in Billings. Shortly after, David Burget and Project 7 emerged in the Flathead Valley.

"Whenever there's an apparent vacuum, someone tries to fill it," McAdam said. "You had splinter groups from the Aryan Nations take root in northwest Montana in the 1990s. When that subsided, the World Church filled the void as the most active white group until around 2003."

When the Human Rights Network bankrupted the World Church by buying out its books, the thinking was that hate in Montana had finally been silenced. But within three months, literature from the National Alliance began turning up in Bozeman.

The group's Montana connection, Kevin McGuire, ran for a position on the Bozeman public school board in 2005. His bid for the seat failed, though he did receive 157 votes. He later told the media that his campaign spurred interest in the National Alliance, which runs a Web site promoting "news for white people, by white people."

While McGuire and the National Alliance failed to find a foothold in Montana, within the past two years, the National Socialist Movement, otherwise known as the American Nazi Party, has found a base in the state. The movement calls for a "union of all whites into a greater America."

The group's Butte-based contact, Shawn Stewart, ran for the state Legislature as a Republican candidate in 2006. The party, however, turned its back on Stewart, who has since moved to Alaska.

"Local folks who are into the white supremacist movement tend to move toward the largest group at the national level," McAdam said. "Right now, there is again this sort of lull. Unfortunately, if what history tells us holds true, somebody will likely step in and fill that vacuum."

McAdam and other human rights watchers now fear that the issue of illegal immigration, coupled with the rise -- and apparent acceptance -- of border militias has already allowed a new, well-disguised white supremacist movement to emerge.

New groups that have taken it upon themselves to patrol the nation's borders, along with those who align themselves with their philosophy, have, McAdam believes, disguised their racism by rallying around the greater issue of illegal immigration.

By rephrasing their rhetoric, white supremacists have successfully wedged themselves into the larger immigration debate. In fact, the National Alliance is currently circulating an electronic leaflet stating that "most whites see blacks as undesirable and dangerous, but blacks aren't going to become a majority. The Mexican problem can destroy America within our lifetime."

"Frankly, this idea of undocumented immigrants coming into America is a message white supremacists have been peddling for years," McAdam said. "They're the modern-day heirs to David Duke, who had his own border watch. So many times with these groups, there's not much in the way of new thinking that goes on. Their ideas recycle over time."

Doreen Kutufam, who came to the U.S. from Ghana on a Fulbright Scholarship and now teaches at Carroll College, has seen hate and its many forms. While Kutufam was at Syracuse University in New York, she recalled, a student-run television station posted disparaging programs, which she and others found offensive.

"They made a satire out of lynching and made a mockery out of taking India Airlines and the fact that, by the time you got off the plane, you'd smell of curry," she said. "As students of color and foreign students, we found that insensitive."

Kutufam admits to being somewhat intimidated coming to Montana, given the state's overall lack of racial diversity.

In the 2000 census, just .03 percent of the state's overall population was listed as black, 2 percent as Hispanic, and 5.1 percent as American Indian.

More than 90 percent of the state's population was listed as white.

"When I came here, I didn't see a lot of people like me," she said. "It was intimidating at first. When I came, I was conscious of my color."

Kutufam has put her fears behind her. She feels welcomed by the community, though some, perhaps curious, still ask her what she's "doing here." They relax when she tells them she's a college professor at Carroll.

Kutufam, who teaches the new television production program at Carroll, shared her interest in the topic of hate. Browsing the Internet, she recently found a series of stories on a California family that moved to Kalispell because, they told the press, there weren't enough whites back home.

The couple's two daughters, who together form the musical duo Prussian Blue, have made national news by singing separatist music -- songs they say are meant for "white people." The girls, with their blonde hair and blue eyes and their fair white skin, look unassuming in photos posted by ABC news.

"It's troubling, especially when you think at this time, in this day and age, that we're all supposed to be moving forward," Kutufam said. "I don't think there's any group that actually advocates in violence. But when people take just a portion of whatever religion or whatever belief and twist it around into hate, it worries me."

Reporter Martin Kidston: 447-4086 or mkidston@helenair.com