ENID, Okla. 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 nations 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 Enids 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.
Hearts pumping, Presnall and Vickers approached the 41-year-old former Marine. From a kitchen trash bag, Vickers pulled out the blown-up photo of Blevins and asked about his ties to white nationalists.
As his campaign manager whisked a red-faced Blevins away, Vickers and Presnall followed, yelling, Answer the question, Judd!
He ran away from two little old ladies, Presnall recalled.
But a white nationalist campaigning for office is one thing; his election is another. And Blevins win didnt sit well with many in Enid. It marked the beginning of a fight to expel Blevins from the City Council a fight for the very soul of Enid that would unite a coalition of its most progressive residents, divide its conservatives and show the power of community organizing.
Over the next year, grandmothers would be branded antifa radicals, local organizers would be accused of attempted murder, and a national white power movement would stake its claim on the City Council. And for a growing number of state and local governments confronting extremism in their ranks, the outcome of that fight Blevins recall election on April 2 will serve either as a model or a warning.
Blevins has declined multiple interview requests. (In response to questions about his white nationalist ties, he told a reporter, I hope you find God.) So when, how and why Blevins got involved with a white supremacist movement may never be known.
What is clear is that from at least 2017 to 2019, Blevins was an active leader in Identity Evropa, one of the largest among the white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups that collectively made up the alt-right.
In public, Identity Evropa eschewed the racist label, opting instead for sanitized descriptors like identitarians who were focused on preserving Western culture. But privately, in secret meetings and internal online chat groups, members were clear about their motivations and beliefs. In posts that praised Nazis, denigrated racial minorities and professed the superiority of white people, pseudonymous Identity Evropa members spoke candidly about their goal of normalizing racist ideologies and infiltrating conservative politics.
The chamber was packed with members of the ESJC and Blevins supporters for the Nov. 21 meeting where the motion to censure Blevins would be decided. Mason, the mayor, was sure he had the votes.
And then Derwin Norwood spoke. Norwood, the owner of a concrete business, a registered Republican and the councils only Black member, took the floor for eight minutes. In a fiery speech that sounded at times like a sermon, Norwood told of his own experiences with racism and quoted scripture.
We need to stop this foolishness, stop fighting, stop bickering, Norwood said.
And then, although Blevins hadnt directly asked for his forgiveness, Norwood was moved by the Holy Spirit to offer it. He remembers it like an out-of-body experience.
Stand up, Norwood told Blevins. Do you love me?
Yes I do, as a brother in Christ, Blevins replied.
l forgive you, Norwood said, and the men embraced to applause and groans.
With that, the votes were gone. The council voted unanimously to table the matter until after the recall election.
No one not the mayor or Blevins or the ESJC or Norwood himself had expected the display, photos of which led news coverage and white nationalist websites alike. Norwood knows his voice carries extra weight when the topic is racism, and he knows that his forgiveness, and that hug, might have given cover to Blevins, but he didnt see any other way.
A lot of people were mad at me, Norwood said, sitting in the lobby of Enids new, but empty, downtown hotel. But Im proud of what I did. I was the example of righteousness.
Besides, he continued, Now no one can say that we influenced the election.
The ESJC collected more than enough signatures and filed its petition to recall Blevins. There was still one hiccup: finding someone to replace him.
They discussed supporting a progressive Democrat, but this was no time for delusions Blevins was already sending out campaign mailers featuring pro-LGBTQ Facebook posts from Balden and Neal, the chair and vice chair, as evidence that any candidate who tried to unseat him would be a tool of the ESJC. At a City Council meeting in December, Blevins pointed his finger toward Balden and offered a warning.
I want anybody whos thinking about filing to understand this. You will be the social justice squads candidate, he said. You will have to campaign as this candidate in a ward that went for Donald Trump by 80%. So good luck with that.
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