Number One: Alabama
In 2006 Alabama had 22 active hate groups—ranging from white racist hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan to black separatist and Neo-Nazi hate groups—it’s lowest number in ten years according to data from the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center! That’s about one active hate group for every 210,000 Alabamans. With all these active hate groups you’d think the law enforcement agencies in that state might have reported more than just one hate crime in Alabama in 2006. But, they didn’t. Maybe that’s because only 42 of the state’s law enforcement agencies participated in submitting hate crime data to the FBI, and only six of these agencies did so for every single quarter of 2006. This means only 101,549 Alabamans (just 2.2% of its population) could have had hate crime data reported to the FBI for the entire year in 2006.

Number Two: Jacksonville, Florida
The largest city in Florida with a metropolitan population of about 1,348,381 people in 2006, Jacksonville was, sadly, the Florida city with the most active hate groups for that year: five. All of these hate groups were essentially white racist hate groups ranging from Neo-Confederate hate groups to a racist skinhead hate group. The FBI may have only tallied three hate crimes occurring in Jacksonville in 2006, but with so many active hate groups, we’re picking it as our #2 spot for hatred and intolerance for 2006.

Number Three: Cleveland, Ohio & Cincinnati, Ohio
It’s a tie for our #3 spot this year with two of Ohio’s largest cities running (red)neck-and-(red)neck for that state’s most hateful, intolerant place to live. A famous architect once said that there is nothing uglier than a Midwestern city. Actually, there is: a Midwestern city with multiple active hate groups. Each of these Buckeye State cities had four each in 2006. They ran the gamut from two Nation of Islam groups to Ku Klux Klan to Neo-Nazi groups. We seriously doubt the veracity of the number of reported hate crimes in those cities also. In total, Cleveland and Cincinnati had just 18 FBI-reported hate crimes in 2006, but with a similar combined population as both of our #3 cities, Columbus, Ohio reported 81 hate crimes in 2006.