More than 30 years after the death of a Ku Klux Klan grand dragon in a Howell hospital, conversations have resurfaced about whether his residency in Livingston County marks the area as a white supremacist hotbed.
Local officials are emphatic: Robert Miles and his hateful legacy, they said, do not represent the people of Howell.
The long-deceased Miles has haunted Howell politically. Although he hosted some white supremacist rallies and burned crosses on the lawn of his property outside the city during the 1970s and 80s, his presence never resulted in a local Klan chapter being formed or the Michigan branch of the organization gaining a foothold in local government. Still, Howell has been unable to escape the label of “Michigan’s KKK capital,” especially when national politics pass through.
Buddy Moorehouse, a Howell resident and journalist, said the town’s reputation stems from its infamous former resident’s desire for publicity. Unlike other KKK leaders of the time, Miles was eager to talk to the press about his views, even inviting filmmaker Michael Moore to his farm for a rally that became the subject of Moore’s first documentary.
“He encouraged publicity. He loved being interviewed,” Moorehouse said. “The reason that the reputation came to Howell is that every time reporters would come up here to do a story about Bob Miles, they would always put a Howell dateline on their stories, because it was the closest city to Detroit, from where they were mostly coming. So, the word started getting out that there were Klan rallies in Howell and that there was a Klan grand dragon in Howell.”
Former President Donald Trump visited the city in August, whipping a mix of some state and national Democrats into a frenzy over the idea of a president who had not denounced the white nationalists who have, at times, vocally supported him making a campaign stop in an area tied, however unfairly, to the movement. Some Democrats, including Attorney General Dana Nessel and a spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris, implied that Trump’s visit to Howell could be interpreted as a dog whistle to the white supremacist community.
Local officials from both parties, however, said that’s an unfair characterization of the city and its people.
Sen. Lana Theis (R-Brighton), whose district includes Howell, lambasted Democrats’ framing of Howell as a “KKK headquarters” and defended the residents of the city in a statement.
She said Miles had property in Cohoctah Township, not Howell, and many of his associates were from Ypsilanti.
“The actions of this terrible individual don’t define Howell – or Livingston County – especially three decades later,” Theis said. “I find it deeply offensive, both personally and on behalf of my constituents, that Democrats continue to mischaracterize Howell. By doing so, they demean the good people of my district for political points without any basis in reality.”
A gaggle of protesters sporting white nationalist and neo-Nazi paraphernalia received a frosty reception when they appeared at the Livingston County courthouse in downtown Howell earlier this summer, departing for a highway overpass in nearby Genoa Township when locals drove them out of the town center.
Howell Mayor Bob Ellis told the Detroit Free Press in July that, based on conversations with police officers and license plates spotted on cars presumed to belong to the protesters, they had come from places in Saginaw or Macomb counties.
Theis said there was no evidence the protesters, who shouted “we love Hitler, we love Trump” to passersby, were from Howell and were more likely outsiders trying to tarnish the community’s reputation.
“Howell and Livingston County are home to good-hearted, salt-of-the-earth people who work every day to build a better future for everyone,” Theis said. “The left’s refusal to let this go is not about history, it’s about attacking a community that stands for what’s possible when people come together for the good of all. And let’s not forget, President Biden visited Howell in 2021. Did Democrats paint the same false narrative when he was there?”
Theis’s feelings on the matter aren’t so different from those of some of her Democratic counterparts, either.
Former Sen. Curtis Hertel Jr. of East Lansing, a Democrat running to represent Howell in the U.S. House of Representatives, also said it’s unfair to call the city any sort of neo-Nazi or white supremacist hotbed.
“To be honest, I’m uncomfortable with some of the things that national Democrats have said about Howell,” Hertel said. “I’m in Howell a lot. I’ve been to the Howell pride festival, which I guess some people were surprised that happens there, but there was a huge contingent in that community. Howell voted overwhelmingly for reproductive rights. It voted for Governor Gretchen Whitmer. It voted for (U.S. Rep.) Elissa Slotkin.”
Slotkin (D-Holly) told reporters Thursday she had no problem with Trump being in Howell to campaign despite her disagreeing with much of what he said at his event in the city.
She said as Howell’s representative in Congress, she did not appreciate the attacks on the city, echoing comments she had made when Trump’s visit took place. Slotkin pointed out that she visited Howell in 2021 during Biden’s visit and drove past a major protest against his visit at that time.
“I think that there’s a lot of people who have worked really hard to undo some of that bad reputation,” Slotkin said. “I thought that it was, it was unfair. … But there’s no …blanket labeling of people, especially for a community that I feel really strongly is doing good things, so I didn’t like that at all.”
Although the rural areas of Livingston County remain Republican strongholds, its larger cities, like Howell and its neighbor Brighton, have been trending more to the left in recent years. Hertel said he finds it inappropriate for outsiders to pass judgment based on events that happened so long ago.
“I think that people should actually go to Howell and actually talk to people in that community before they make comments about it, because I think Howell is a much different place than it was 30 years ago,” he said.
Moorehouse agreed and said the misrepresentation of Howell actually makes it more difficult to reckon with historic racism or lack of diversity in Livingston County.
“We do have to have a discussion about race and diversity and inclusion in our community, and we can’t have that discussion in an honest way if we have this unfair cloud hanging over our head, where people who don’t know the truth assume that we’re the Klan capital of Michigan,” he said. “We can’t have an honest discussion about it when some people come into the discussion going, ‘Oh, well, you’re all Klansmen.'”
Moorehouse said the stubborn nature of Howell’s reputation also has tangible consequences for the community.
“Business owners in Howell have a hard time attracting diverse employees because of that reputation,” he said. “Ten or 15 years ago, the Detroit City Council actually voted against giving a contract to a Howell business (because of Miles’ legacy). It’s not just reputational damage. There’s real damage that this does.”
It didn’t help, he said, when Democrats reinforced the idea that the increasingly purple city is populated with racists or Klan members. Moorehouse said if they hope to win support from Livingston County’s more liberal areas, dredging up a largely unfounded stereotype that, for a while, seemed to be dying off isn’t the way to do it.
To boot, Moorehouse said he knows the burst of publicity attracted by Trump’s visit and the subsequent reactions from Democrats would be exactly what Miles would want to see if he were still alive today.
“Here we are back to square one,” he said, “and Bob Miles is down in hell smiling.”
– By Lily Guiney and Nick Smith
