Judd Blevins, a city commissioner in Enid, Oklahoma, marched in the 2017 white nationalist Unite the Right rally. Now he faces a recall vote.
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 nation’s 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 Enid’s 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.
What blows my mind is that the only black councilmember forgave him and basically torpedoed a censure of him.
Would really like to pick his brain to see what he was thinking at that moment considering the guy essentially admitted he was still a member of that white supremist group.
Why not do so? His email’s probably public.
I contacted the person involved in some small town story once and he got back to me the same day.
I would like to ask all the black and gay republicans what the hell is going on in their minds.
I mean it’s obviously money, but still, I’d love to hear them justify it.