From the Publisher

By Elizabeth P. Valk

When correspondent Michael Riley became Atlanta bureau chief last year, high on the list of stories he wanted to tackle was a look at one of America's most intractable problems: race hate. His report this week is not the usual arm's-length examination but a rare -- and frightening -- closeup view of hatemongering by white supremacists.

Mike has a special gift for putting a human face on issues. A staff member since 1985, he has produced trenchant essays on Michael Dukakis' failed presidential aspirations and a moving account of a hometown reception given the body of a young Marine, one of the first American casualties of the Persian Gulf war. Riley also has a keen eye for the nuances of tangled race relations. Raised in Charlotte, N.C., and educated at Wake Forest University, he worked at the Dispatch in Lexington, N.C., where he covered his first cross burning. Mike then went north to study at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government before coming to work for us.

His background and talents dovetailed perfectly with those of photographer William Campbell, who worked on the story with him. Based in Africa for more than a decade, Bill captured for us shocking images of starving refugees and the miseries of war. Upon his return three years ago to live in Virginia, Campbell, who as a child spent summers in North Carolina, was startled at the ferocity of America's white supremacists. "Their rhetoric is just as rabid as that of white supporters of apartheid in South Africa," he observes.

Moral ambiguities abounded. In Janesville, Wis., Riley watched as anti-Klan demonstrators violently battled police while Klan members stood peacefully on a hill. "The protesters hit me in the stomach with a can of Coke hurled from 100 ft. away," recalls Mike. "Klan leader Thom Robb is a friendly soul who welcomed us into his home for a spaghetti dinner. He loves his family, but he's looked at the world from upside down for so long that hate has become love and evil has become good."

But the toughest part of the story for Riley may have been deciding whether to do it at all. Wouldn't the publicity wind up giving wider currency to virulent views? he asked himself. Wouldn't it be better to ignore the racists? The anger spawned at rallies he attended convinced Riley otherwise. "As someone once told me, mushrooms grow best in the dark, so better to shine some light." I think you'll agree that the Riley-Campbell combination illuminates this subject pretty well.