After NIOT Billings Steering Committee Chair Eran Thompson returned home to Billings after taking part in last year’s NIOT Leadership Gathering, he went home with a renewed sense of mission: to revitalize the NIOT movement in the town where it all began.
Thompson, the lead organizer of Montana People’s Action, turned his inspiration into action, and worked with NIOT Billings and the Black Heritage Foundation to host a vibrant, energizing series of Not In Our Town events over the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend. The group invited Not In Our Town producers Patrice O’Neill and Rhian Miller to participate in and lead many of the week’s activities, including a Not In Our School Assembly at Laurel Middle School.
Celebration of the King Holiday has particular significance in Billings. The series of events chronicled in the Not in Our Town story began fifteen years ago when community members who gathered at a candlelight vigil to honor Dr. King discovered that their cars had been blanketed with KKK fliers.