A billboard in Iowa has started a national controversy.
It's sponsored by the Tea Party and shows President Barack Obama in between two of the world's most infamous mass murderers, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin.
"You don't do what you do with Hitler, you don't use the epithets and racial slurs that this group has done with their placards, without having some firm foundation of people," said Sam Gresham from Common Cause Ohio.
Gresham supports a resolution by the NAACP to push the Tea Party to renounce racism, ONN's Jim Heath reported on Friday.
At a Tea Party event in Washington D.C., one activist said he hated Mexicans because they stink like animals. Another complained that Obama was "too black" to be president. A third person admitted that he was proud to be racist because he was white.
Those are comments that House Minority Leader John Boehner called, "reprehensible."
"So when John Boehner said some things they do is over the edge, I think we have substantial evidence to support that contention that there are racist elements within the Tea Party," Gresham said.
"We do not agree with many of the things that people are saying, the racist statements against another group of people," said Alicia Healy, a Tea Party supporter.
Healy supports the Tea Party effort and said the racism charge is overblown, and does not reflect the movement.
"We believe that all people, we want all groups of people to be involved in the Tea Party movement," Healy said. "It's about less government."
To counteract the criticism, Tea Party members point to a decision made by the U.S. Justice Department not to prosecute a New Black Panther member accused of voter intimidation in Philadelphia.
"I think most reasonable people in the civil rights movement would repudiate that type of behavior," Healy said.
Healy said both sides should concentrate on the positive contributions of all races.
"I've spoken about African-Americans who are patriots and have done so much for our liberty," Healy said.
The Tea Party in Iowa has since removed the controversial billboard.
You can watch the debate continue on this Sunday's Capitol Square. It airs at 10 a.m., Noon and 7 p.m. on ONN.
