<div id="subtitle">Northern Idaho human rights activist finds noose on front porch of Spokane home</div><div><p>The education director of a Human Rights Education Institute in Idaho said someone left a noose on the porch of her home in an apparent threat against the black family.</p><p>Rachel Dolezal said she found the noose Sunday morning just outside her front door in Spokane, Wash.</p><p>"I spent a lot of time in Mississippi, so when I saw that rope, I knew what it was," Dolezal told the Coeur d'Alene Press in a story published Wednesday. "You have to learn and practice how to tie a noose. It's a very intentional thing."</p><p>Dolezal reported the noose to the Spokane Police Department the following day. Department spokeswoman Jennifer DeRuwe said a detective was assigned to the case, and it was being investigated as a hate crime or malicious harassment.</p><p>It was the latest in a series of unsettling events for Dolezal and her family. Last week, her home was broken into and $13,000 worth of personal belongings — including two guns — were taken.</p><p>Police are investigating the burglary as well. Dolezal and DeRuwe said there was no evidence yet linking the two crimes.</p><p>Idaho has long struggled to overcome a reputation as a haven for racists and white separatists. The small town of Hayden in northern Idaho was for 30 years an outpost of the white separatist group Aryan Nations.</p><p>Residents largely rejected the group, and a $6.3 million civil judgment against it in 2000 over a violent attack forced the group's leader, Richard Butler, to liquidate the compound.</p><p>The Human Rights Education Institute is located in Coeur d'Alene, where residents have reported racist leaflets being strewn across their yards for several months this year.</p><p>Earlier this year, Dolezal said, several white supremacists confronted her while she was working at the institute.</p><p>"They asked me if I am biracial, then asked where I live and where my son goes to school," she said.</p><p>Dolezal found it disconcerting but gave them a tour of the building's exhibits and invited them to future events.</p><p>At the time she was living in Coeur d'Alene. A week after the confrontation at the institute, someone broke through the gate of her home, making it into her yard before police arrived and the person fled, she said.</p><p>That incident prompted her to move to Spokane, along with the fact that her 7-year-old son wanted to be in a more multicultural school.</p><p>Dolezal said she has no plans to leave the area entirely. A security system with surveillance cameras will be installed in the house, she said.</p><p>"These things are happening, yes, but there's so much being done about it. There's a huge counter-force with human rights education — we are organized like never before," Dolezal said.</p><p>In the meantime, she said she's trying to keep things normal for her son, who thought the noose was a dog toy. She didn't explain any further</p><p>"For him as a child, the main thing he needs to have in mind is that I'm going to keep him safe," she said.</p><p>___</p><p>Information from: Coeur d'Alene Press, http://www.cdapress.com</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=59595846&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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