
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, August 29, 1995                   TAG: 9508290064
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

HATE FLIERS TARGET SITE OF ASHE STATUE

Fliers distributed in a historic neighborhood where a statue of Arthur Ashe will be erected next year describe the tennis champion and humanitarian as ``AIDS infected'' and used a racial slur.

Residents near the Monument Avenue site discovered the fliers on their doorsteps late Saturday and early Sunday.

The flier also calls supporters of the monument site ``primates'' and ``creatures.'' The fliers urge people to send donations to a post office box in Stephens City, which is in Frederick County.

The site, on a boulevard previously home only to statues of Confederate soldiers and sailors, was approved by the City Council this summer after a long public debate.

Susan Hudgins said her family returned from a vacation to find the flier on its doorstep. ``The idea that someone was walking around here who thinks like that was not real comforting to us,'' she said.

``It's an attempt to sow seeds of discord within our community at a most basic and gutter level,'' said Samuel K. Kaplan, director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith's regional office in Norfolk.

Kaplan said members of the organization that distributed the fliers have been involved in the Maryland Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and a Baltimore skinhead group.

by CNB