National Alliance | |
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Leader | Will Williams [1] |
Founder | William Luther Pierce |
Founded | 1974 |
Headquarters |
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Ideology | |
Political position | Far-right |
Religion | Cosmotheism |
Colours | Black White Red |
Flag | |
Variant flag [2] | |
Website | |
National Alliance | |
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The National Alliance is a white supremacist, [3] [4] [5] [6] neo-Nazi, [3] and Christian Identity [7] [8] [9] political organization founded by William Luther Pierce in 1974 and based in Mill Point, West Virginia. Membership in 2002 was estimated at 2,500 with an annual income of $1 million. [10] Membership declined after Pierce's death in 2002, and after a split in its ranks in 2005, became largely defunct. [3] [11]
The National Alliance was reorganized from an earlier group called the National Youth Alliance (NYA), which in turn was formed out of the remains of the youth wing of Governor George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign. The NYA broke into factions as a result of infighting, and William Luther Pierce, a former physics associate-professor and author of the white supremacist novels The Turner Diaries and Hunter , gained control of the largest remnant and relaunched it as the National Alliance in 1974. [12]
The Order was an offshoot of the National Alliance and modeled themselves after a similar group depicted in The Turner Diaries. Timothy McVeigh was in possession of a copy of The Turner Diaries at the time of his arrest following the Oklahoma City Bombing. [13] McVeigh bought copies of the book (published by the National Alliance), sold them at gun shows, and otherwise distributed them. [14]
In 1997, two National Alliance members were charged with committing bank robberies in Florida and Connecticut. [15] One of them admitted to channeling funds from the robberies to the National Alliance. He was charged with attempting to detonate a series of pipe bombs in order to divert attention from a future robbery. [16]
German fugitive Hendrik Moebus was captured near the National Alliance compound, at which he is believed to been hiding, in August 2000. [17]
Following Pierce's death from cancer in 2002, the Alliance's board of directors appointed Erich Gliebe to succeed him as chairman of the organization. [18] A series of power struggles began almost immediately, with high-ranking members either resigning or being fired. A boycott of the National Alliance's Resistance Records label resulted in a steep drop-off in generated funds. [19]
In April 2005, prominent Alliance member Kevin Alfred Strom, then editor of National Vanguard magazine, issued a declaration calling for Gliebe to step down; [20] the Alliance's executive committee and most of its unit coordinators supported the action. Gliebe refused, claiming that the Alliance operated under the "Leadership Principle" and stating that he would not yield to any coup. Strom formed a new group called National Vanguard. [21] In January 2008, Strom pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography in exchange for the other charges to be dropped. [22] [23] [24] He was sentenced to 23 months in prison on April 23, 2008. [23] [25] [24] Strom told the court before being sentenced that he was "not a pedophile" and was "in fact the precise opposite of what has been characterized in this case", [23] saying he had been "unwillingly" possessing 10 images of child pornography and that those came from an online forum he had visited which had been "flooded with spam", which included "sleazy, tragic" pictures of children that he deleted. The judge of the case responded: "Mr. Strom, you pled guilty to charges that now you're saying you're innocent. I prefer people plead not guilty than put it on me." [25]
Shortly after the attempted coup by Strom, Gliebe resigned as chairman of the Alliance and briefly appointed Shaun Walker as his successor. However, following Walker's arrest in June 2006, Gliebe again assumed leadership of the organization. [26] [27] By that year, paid membership for the Alliance had declined to fewer than 800 and the paid staff was down to only ten people. [28] By 2012, the Alliance reportedly consisted of fewer than 100 members, with no paid staff other than Gliebe. [29] [30] The following year, it was revealed that the Alliance's property in Mill Point, West Virginia, had been put up for sale. The end of the National Alliance as a "membership organization" was confirmed by Gliebe in September 2013. [31]
In 2014, Will Williams became head of an organization which calls itself the National Alliance (NA). [32] However, a rival faction disputes the claim that this group is maintaining continuity with the original Alliance which was founded by Pierce. [33] The Williams led NA has since been embroiled in several legal issues.
In 2015, an accountant was hired to audit the NA's books by Williams. According to a lawsuit which was filed by a former Baltimore attorney against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), there was a confrontation between the accountant and Williams. The lawsuit further claims that after the accountant left the NA headquarters he released documents that he had scanned to the SPLC. [34]
In December 2015, Williams was arrested and charged with battery after he allegedly hit and strangled a female employee on the grounds of the Mill Point compound. [35] He was convicted, briefly incarcerated, and placed on probation. He appealed the sentence and the appellate court affirmed the conviction. [36]
Williams was banned from the NA compound in West Virginia pursuant to a court order stemming from his 2015 arrest. [37]
In 2018, NA filed an $850,O00 claim against the estate of John McLaughlin, a former NA director who had filed suit against the organization. The purpose of this legal action was for McLaughlin's "tortious breach of fidiciary duties." The claim was denied by the Circuit Court of Piatt County, IL. [38]
Williams claims that the National Alliance "(is) back. We are definitely back". [39] He also said in a letter to a newspaper sent from Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee (allegedly the NA's headquarters) that "(The National Alliance does) not appreciate being called 'haters' or being associated with some 'hate movement'." [40]
Thomas Mair, later to be convicted of murdering the British Labour Party politician Jo Cox, was connected to the National Alliance. [41]
Before the death of Pierce, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation called the National Alliance the best-financed and best-organized white nationalist organization of its kind in the United States. In 2002, the National Alliance was estimated to have 2,500 members, with an annual income of $1 million. [10]
In 2004, Harry Robert McCorkill of New Brunswick, Canada, attempted to will his entire estate (valued at almost $250,000) to the National Alliance upon his death. However, in 2014, the Court of Queen's Bench of New Brunswick invalidated his will on the ground that the National Alliance was a criminal organization which was formed and existed for the purposes of spreading hate speech and inciting violence against non-whites. [42]
In the past, the organization ran a white power record label which was called Resistance Records. In 2002, it released the video game Ethnic Cleansing , an action which was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League. [43]
The organization also produces American Dissident Voices, a radio program which was broadcast on shortwave, AM and FM stations, and streaming audio on the Internet. At one point in the mid-1990s there were 22 radio stations, AM and FM, which carried the program. The original host was Kevin Alfred Strom, who continued to serve as the host of the program until early 1997, when Pierce took it over and hosted it full-time. Upon the death of Pierce in July 2002, Strom hosted it until April 16, 2005. Walker then became the host of American Dissident Voices until his arrest in June 2006. At that time, Gliebe became the host of the radio program. Broadcasts of the program continued until 2012, when the frequency of them became erratic. At some time in 2013, Gliebe ceased broadcasting the program altogether, but in December of that year, Kevin Alfred Strom resumed the broadcasting of the program.
The spiritual aspect of the National Alliance's ideology is espoused by the Cosmotheist Church, a Christian Identity group. [7] [8] [9]
William Luther Pierce III was an American neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and far-right political activist. For more than 30 years, he was one of the highest-profile individuals of the white nationalist movement. A physicist by profession, he was author of the novels The Turner Diaries and Hunter under the pen name Andrew Macdonald. The former has inspired multiple hate crimes including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Pierce founded the white nationalist National Alliance, an organization which he led for almost 30 years.
The Order, also known as the Brüder Schweigen and Silent Brotherhood, was a Neo-Nazi terrorist organization active in the United States between September 1983 and December 1984. The group raised funds via armed robbery. Ten members were tried and convicted for racketeering, and two for their role in the 1984 murder of radio talk show host Alan Berg.
Erich Josef Gliebe is an American former boxer, Neo-Nazi and former chairman of the National Alliance. In his youth, he was a professional boxer who had the ring name of "The Aryan Barbarian".
Resistance Records was a Canadian record label owned by Resistance LLC which was closely connected to the organization National Alliance. It produced and sold music by neo-Nazi and white separatist musicians, primarily through its website. Advertising itself as "The Soundtrack for White Revolution", Resistance LLC also published a magazine called Resistance, with Erich Gliebe becoming the editor in 1999. The label is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. As of 2011, the label was headquartered in Lufkin, Texas, US.
David Eden Lane was an American domestic terrorist, white separatist, neo-Nazi, and a convicted felon. A member of the terrorist organization The Order, he was convicted and sentenced to 190 years in prison for racketeering, conspiracy, and the violation of the civil rights of Alan Berg, a Jewish radio talk show host, who prosecutors claimed was murdered by a member of the group via a drive-by shooting with Lane acting as driver, though they were unsuccessful in getting murder convictions. He died while still incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Volksfront, also known as Volksfront International, was an American white separatist organization founded on October 20, 1994, in Portland, Oregon. According to Volksfront's now defunct website, the group described itself as an "international fraternal organization for persons of European descent." The logo of Volksfront was the Algiz rune, a common rune used as a neo-Nazi symbol common among other organizations such as National Alliance. Volksfront had approximately 50 members in the United States split between four chapters designated as Pac-West, Central States, North East, and Gulf-Atlantic, and an additional 50 members dispersed in other countries including Germany, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Spain. The goal of the movement was to create an all-White homeland in the Pacific Northwest. The flag of Volksfront was based on the Nazi flag in the colors of black, white, and red with the Volksfront logo and the slogan was "Race Over All" implying that race mattered over everything else. In August 2012, the United States branch of Volksfront announced their dissolution via their website. Citing harassment and investigations by the authorities, the group said it was disbanding.
The Imperial Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKA) is a white supremacist, white nationalist, neo-Nazi paramilitary organization. Until the late 2000s, it was the second largest Klan group in the United States, and at one point in the early 2000s, it was the largest. In 2008, the IKA was reported to have at least 23 chapters in 17 states, most of which were small.
Kevin Alfred Strom is an American white nationalist and neo-Nazi from Virginia who founded the National Vanguard. In 2008, Strom pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.
Fourteen Words is a reference to two slogans originated by David Eden Lane, one of nine founding members of the defunct white supremacist terrorist organization The Order, and are accompanied by Lane's "88 Precepts". The slogans have served as a rallying cry for militant white nationalists internationally.
Milton Alexander Linder is an American white supremacist. He is the founder and editor of the Vanguard News Network (VNN), an antisemitic and white supremacist website and forum described by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as "one of the most active white supremacist sites on the Internet."
National Vanguard is an American white nationalist, neo-Nazi organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia, founded in 2005 by convicted sex offender Kevin Alfred Strom and former members of the National Alliance.
The National Socialist Movement (NSM) is a Neo-Nazi organization based in the United States. It was a part of the Nationalist Front. Once considered to be the largest and most prominent National Socialist organization in the United States, in recent years its membership and prominence have plummeted. It is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Stormfront is a neo-Nazi Internet forum, and the Web's first major racial hate site. The site is focused on propagating white nationalism, Nazism, antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as anti-feminism, homophobia, transphobia, Holocaust denial, and white supremacy.
Ethnic Cleansing is a 2002 first-person shooter produced by the National Alliance, an American white supremacist and neo-Nazi organization. The player controls one of three selectable characters, including a Ku Klux Klan member and a neo-Nazi skinhead, and traverses two levels to kill stereotypically depicted African Americans, Latinos, and Jews. Designed to be politically incorrect and spread a white supremacy message, the game was released through the National Alliance's record label, Resistance Records, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2002. It was received negatively by anti-hate organizations like the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and has been considered as one of the most controversial and most racist games. Resistance Records sought to release a series of games based on the novel The Turner Diaries and published White Law in 2003.
Creativity, historically known as The (World) Church of the Creator, is an atheistic ("nontheistic") white supremacist new religious movement which espouses white separatism, antitheism, antisemitism, anti-Christian sentiment, scientific racism, homophobia, and religious and philosophical naturalism. Creativity calls itself a "white racialist" religion and it has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. It was founded in Lighthouse Point, Florida, United States, by Ben Klassen as the "Church of the Creator" in 1973. It now has a presence in several states of the U.S. as well as Australia, Eastern Europe, and the United Kingdom.
Arthur Kemp is a Rhodesian-born writer and the owner of Ostara Publications, a distributor of racist tracts, who was from 2009 to 2011 the foreign affairs spokesperson for the British National Party. He was born in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and worked as a right-wing journalist in South Africa before moving to the United Kingdom in 1996.
Matthew Warren Heimbach is an American white supremacist and neo-Nazi. He has attempted to form alliances between several far-right extremist groups.
The Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP) was a neo-Nazi political party active in the United States between 2013 and 2018, affiliated with the broader "alt-right" movement that became active within the U.S. during the 2010s. It was considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center's list.
Patriot Front is an American white supremacist and neo-fascist hate group. Part of the broader alt-right movement, the group split off from the neo-Nazi organization Vanguard America in the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally in 2017. Patriot Front's aesthetic combines traditional Americana with fascist symbolism. Internal communications within the group indicated it had approximately 200 members as of late 2021. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the group generated 82% of reported incidents in 2021 involving distribution of racist, antisemitic, and other hateful propaganda in the United States, comprising 3,992 incidents, in every continental state.