A crowd of 200 filed into Baker University Theater yesterday evening to hear former terrorist Tom Martinez recall his life as a member of hate groups turned criminal informant for the United States government.
Martinez’s appearance was sponsored by Students Teaching About Racism in Society (S.T.A.R.S), Student Senate, The Kennedy Lecture Series and the Black Student Union.
“I don’t come here tonight wearing a badge of honor,” Martinez said. “I was involved in some terrible groups that did terrible things.”
Martinez opened by asking the audience if they could pick a racist out from a crowd.
“What does a racist look like? Do they have horns? Do they have tails?” he asked. “Most come from good, loving homes, just like I did. Not a word was spoken against black people in my home as a kid.”
Attributing his struggles with racism to abuse suffered as a child, Martinez described his life as a minority in a primarily black high school as cruel and violent.
“After a good buddy of mine was stabbed, I was singled out as being next to go,” he said. “Man, I walked out that door and never went back. I was scared to death by these black gang kids.”
After struggling to support his family on a meager salary, Martinez said he was attracted to the hate-filled rhetoric of Robert Matthews, the charismatic leader of a violent racist organization called The Order.
“How do you feed a wife, baby and the upkeep of an apartment on $125 a week?” he said. “You just can’t. Bob offered something more.”
After a few years of reading white power literature and attending Ku Klux Klan conventions and meetings, Martinez said he reached a breaking point when a friend of his admitted to committing murder for The Order.
“I didn’t wake up one day saying, ‘Kumbaya. I love the government,’” he said. “I just wasn’t for murder.”
Martinez said he went on to work with the FBI to bring down The Order and testified at trials of the group’s members.
“It sounds great that these guys are in prison — it is over,” he said. “But we need to make sure that they stay gone.”
Micia Clemons, a junior studying video production and secretary of S.T.A.R.S., said she sees racism as far from gone.
“We need to bring issue to every issue of racism, no matter how small,” she said. “We need to be proactive, not reactive.”
cd234008@ohiou.edu
@ThePostCulture
