WA woman campaigns against hate

PRIEST RIVER — A Seattle woman on a cross-country trek to combat hatred posted up alongside U.S. Highway 2 on Friday with a sign which read “Islam is Love.”

Locals looked on warily while one motorist yelled “No, it’s not!” as he sped off in a pickup truck.

Alia MacKenzie said she began her campaign in Washington, D.C., and said the response to her signs has been “mostly positive.”

“But there has been some hostility,” she said as traffic streamed past her near Burger Express.

MacKenzie said her stops in the Bible Belt and California have caused some of the more visceral reactions to her one-woman campaign. She said her vehicle was fired upon by an irate motorist on U.S. 101 in Eureka, Calif., which caused her to crash into him on the highway. The man sped away and MacKenzie rented a vehicle to continue her campaign.

“It’s not as liberal is people think it is,” MacKenzie said of California. “There’s a lot of hostility in California.”

A man seated in a truck parked a short distance away wondered if MacKenzie was “trying to start the Taliban” in North Idaho.

MacKenize said she is simply trying buck against the animus expressed toward Islam in America.

“I’m trying to counter that hate,” she said.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.