Countering a cross-town meeting of an Illinois-based white supremacist group, Bates opened the doors of Merrill Gymnasium on Jan. 11 to a pro-diversity rally (organized by the Many and One Coalition) that filled the field house and the walkways outside with more than 4,000 participants. The neo-Nazi group known as the World Church of the Creator, which met the same day and time several miles away, had targeted Lewiston for a visit in the controversial aftermath of Mayor Laurier Raymond's decision in October to send an open letter to Somali immigrants, some 1,200 of whom have settled in the area in recent months, asking them to stop coming to Lewiston.