The riveting account begins in 1991, when Cantor Michael Weisser receives his first threatening phone call from Larry Trapp, Grand Dragon of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Nebraska. Trapp, a wheelchair-bound amputee holed up in a cramped apartment filled with automatic weapons, Nazi paraphernalia, and stacks of hate literature, had for years led a campaign of terror in Lincoln, Nebraska. But Cantor Weisser and his wife Julie refused to be intimidated by Trapp's escalating threats. Instead, they made a stunning offer of friendship; after an emotional confrontation with the Weissers, Trapp shocked everyone -- including himself -- by resigning from the KKK and breaking his ties with other neo-Nazi leaders.
Not by the Sword recounts Larry Trapp's life as a racist, his startling transformation in response to the Weissers' kindness, and his subsequent crusade to redeem his past by apologizing to his victims and speaking out publicly against racism and bigotry. Kathryn Watterson movingly describes how one family, along with other individuals from the Jewish, African American, and Asian American communities in Lincoln, feared, fought, and then forgave a man who had tried to destroy them.
This gripping tale gives the reader an inside view of hate mongering, and offers a powerful testament to the triumph of the human spirit and the transforming power of love and tolerance.
Winner of the Christopher Award.