The number of organized hate groups in the United States grew last year, mostly through new chapters of established white power organizations, this according to the Southern Poverty Law Center in a new report. In the report, detailed today by The New York Times, the research group said 474 hate groups and their chapters engaged in some form of racist behavior in 1997. The center used a different methodology to count the groups, so previous numbers cannot be directly compared, but if the old methodology had been used, the latest figures would represent a 20% increase from ’96. Most of the newer groups come from a growth in the number of chapters of groups like the Ku Klux Klan and churches belonging to the Christian Identity movement, whose followers cite the Bible as the source for their racist views.