UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2001-2

 

The number of antisemitic incidents in 2001 in the US decreased by 11 percent from 2000, despite the resurgence of tensions in the Middle East. Many extremists in the US –Muslim, as well as right- and left-wing groups – blamed Jews, Israel and American support of Israel for the September 11 events. Muslim extremist groups in the US and abroad capitalized on the attacks by allying themselves with the antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiments of American right- and left-wing extremists. Exploitation of the Internet by extremists of all hues expanded.

 

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

The Jewish community in the United States, which constitutes the largest concentration of Jews in the world, numbers 5.2 million and comprises 1.8 percent of the total population of 281.4 million. The bulk of American Jewry lives in major cities and their environs, including New York City (1.45 million), Los Angeles (519,000), Southeast Florida (504,000), Chicago (261,000), Boston (227,000), San Francisco (210,000), Philadelphia (206,000) and Cleveland (81,000). The intermarriage rate is high, today accounting for more than 50 percent of all unions involving a Jewish partner.

Leading national Jewish organizations include the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), Anti-Defamation League (ADL), B’nai B’rith, Hadassah, Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), Jewish War Veterans (JWV) and many other religious, fraternal and Zionist groups. The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations acts as the domestic and foreign policy umbrella group for 55 member organizations. A merger between the Council of Jewish Federations, United Israel Appeal and United Jewish Appeal in 1998 created the United Jewish Communities (UJC), which represents Jewish community federations and independent Jewish communities throughout North America.

There is an active Jewish press and almost every community with a large Jewish population supports its own English-language weekly newspaper.

 

EXTREMIST ORGANIZATIONS AND GROUPS

Among organized extremist groups in the United States, the following are the most active:

            The virulently antisemitic, white supremacist World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) promotes the creation of “an all-white nation and ultimately an all-white world,” rejecting Christianity outright in favor of its whites-only, pseudo-religion “Creativity.” After its founder and leader Ben Klassen committed suicide in 1993, the group suffered a decline, but was revived by Matt Hale in 1996. Hale calls himself “Pontifex Maximus,” or “supreme leader,” of the group and uses an Israeli flag as a household doormat to wipe his feet.

The WCOTC is headquartered in East Peoria, Illinois, with a small but dedicated cadre of members who run upwards of 50 contact points across the US and another 10 abroad, in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Norway and Sweden. Their mission is to disseminate WCOTC’s “Creativity” propaganda and recruit new members to the cause, especially college students. The group spreads its propaganda via the Internet and e-mail, as well as by dropping booklets on lawns or inserting fliers in free newspapers. “Distribution blitzes” are commonly held on dates of significance to the group, such as Hale’s and Klassen’s birthdays. Hale has also made scheduled appearances at public libraries throughout Illinois, as well as in Utah, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. He is suing the Illinois bar association, which denied him a license to practice law – as did the Montana bar association in February 2001.

Hale was attempting to reinforce his control over the organization in 2001, following the defections of prominent WCOTC leader and Women’s Frontier head Lisa Turner, along with other key members. In July, he issued a directive that all WCOTC “ministers” send him monthly reports detailing their organizational activities, or risk having their credentials revoked. (For the WCOTC’s reaction to the September 11 events, see General Analysis.)

The neo-Nazi, Hillsboro, West Virginia-based National Alliance was led from 1974 by veteran antisemite and white supremacist William Pierce, until his death in July 2002. Erich Gliebe has now taken over the reins of the organization. Pierce was active until diagnosed with cancer one month before he died. He had increased National Alliance activities, membership and contacts in the past few years. Pierce continually fashioned and expanded a multimedia approach to recruitment, specifically targeting young people through extensive, vicious, pseudo-intellectual propaganda available on his website and through the purchase of companies that produce and distribute hate-rock music (see ASW 1999/2000 and 2000/1).

            Pierce repeatedly blamed the Jews and Israel for the September 11 attacks. On 10 November 2001, National Alliance held what it described as “one of its most successful demonstrations ever” in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, to “express the opposition of American patriots to the policies of the US government that expose Americans to terrorist attacks.” About 70 demonstrators, including members of other extremist groups such as WCOTC, the Council of Conservative Citizens, the American Friends of the British National Party and EURO (see below), participated. They carried placards saying “No Blood for Israel” and shouted chants such as “No more terror, no more war, no more being Israel’s whore.”

            Collaboration between ultra-right-wing groups, such as in the example above, has been a noteworthy trend in the past year. On 12 January 2002, a similar collection of groups (members of the National Alliance, WCOTC, Aryan Nations, National Socialist Movement and Hammerskins) gathered in York, Pennsylvania – the scene of deadly race riots in 1969 – for a scheduled appearance by WCOTC leader Matt Hale at the local public library. Confronted by anti-racist and anarchist protesters, the rightists waved swastika flags, gave the Nazi salute and chanted racial slurs. Twenty-five people from both sides were reportedly arrested.

The Christian “Identity” movement promotes its racist, antisemitic agenda by manipulating religious themes. It holds that people of white European ancestry are descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel, making them the “chosen people” of the Bible. Identity’s “two seed-line” theory asserts that only whites are descended from Adam and Eve and that Jews originate from a sexual union between Eve and Satan.

Among notable “Identity” groups in the US today are America’s Promise Ministries of Sandpoint, Idaho; Dan Gayman’s Schell City, Missouri, Church of Israel; Pete Peters’ Laporte, Colorado-based Scriptures for America Worldwide; Elohim City of Oklahoma; Carl Story and Vincent Bertollini’s 11th Hour Remnant Messenger of Sandpoint, Idaho and Kingdom Identity Ministries in Harrison, Arkansas.

Aryan Nations, a paramilitary neo-Nazi group formed in the mid-1970s, also subscribes to “Identity” ideology. Aryan Nations was based in Hayden Lake, Idaho, and led by its founder, Richard Butler, until forced to declare bankruptcy in late 2000 (see ASW 2000/1). Membership has since fallen off significantly. A key factor hampering the group’s rehabilitation is a split into four factions – Church of the Sons of Yahweh in Dayton, Ohio, led by Harold Ray Redfeairn, who briefly headed Aryan Nations; Church of Jesus Christ Christian/Aryan Nations, in Ulysses, Pennsylvania, led by the radical and violence-prone faction of August Kreis and Charles John Juba; Church of Jesus Christ Christian/Aryan Nations, a remnant of the original group, in Hayden Lake, Idaho, led by Richard Butler and his assistant, Shaun Winkler; and Church of True Israel, in Couer d’Alene, Idaho. The Pennsylvania faction convened an Aryan Nations World Congress in July 2002, in an attempt to emulate the Aryan Nations congresses held in Idaho in past years.

Formed in Dallas in the late 1980s, the white supremacist Hammerskin Nation, the most violent and best-organized neo-Nazi skinhead group in the United States, is composed almost exclusively of young white males, whom the group actively recruits. As is often characteristic of racist skinheads, a number of its members have been convicted of violent crimes, including harassing, beating or murdering minorities.

Many popular racist rock music bands are affiliated with the Hammerskin Nation, which regularly sponsors hate rock concerts. The Hammerskins have an estimated 19 chapters in the US and their website lists chapters in several other countries, including Canada, England, France, the Netherlands and Germany. This is in keeping with a recent trend that finds American white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups forging alliances, both with each other and with their European counterparts. However, in 2001 the group ceased publication of its newsletter and appeared to have difficulty maintaining its website, indicating possible organizational problems.

In late September 2001, the Hammerskins’ online bulletin board added a pop-up window that read “Blame Israel” over a picture of the burning twin towers of the World Trade Center. “The United States has looked the other way while the Jews have murdered hundreds of Palestinians, and stolen land from them,” the Hammerskins wrote. “We’ve bombed Arab country’s [sic] like Baghdad [sic] because Hussein invaded its neighbor, yet our country looks away from atrocities done by the Jews.” According to the Hammerskins, “Our ties with the state of Israel are what brought on this act; this is mere retribution on [the] part of the Arabs because of these strong ties with Israel.” The message concluded by urging the bombing of Israel.

The Minnesota-based neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement (NSM) has contact points throughout the US and believes in racial separation and minimal intervention of government into the lives of its citizens. NSM grew rapidly in 2001, adding a number of chapters, and gaining a higher profile through increased activity, particularly with other groups such as National Alliance and WCOTC. In addition, members of the group began to engage in armed paramilitary training in Ohio. Shortly after 11 September, NSM stated on its website that “the attack in New York, although tragic, was forth coming. The US has continued to aid Israel in its genocidal war against Palestine and now innocent US citizens have paid, in blood, for their Government’s stupidity.” Subscribers to the NSM mailing list expressed virulently antisemitic sentiments.

Liberty Lobby, founded in 1955 by Willis Carto, was for years the most influential antisemitic propaganda organization in the United States. Liberty Lobby had considerable impact on right-wing extremism through its weekly Spotlight, its national radio programs, “Radio Free America” and “Editor’s Roundtable,” and the monthly Barnes Review (see ASW 2000/1). In July 2001, Liberty Lobby was denied bankruptcy protection and forced to liquidate its assets, which meant ceasing publication of The Spotlight. However, a month later, a new and almost identical antisemitic and anti-Israel newspaper called American Free Press was launched by the Spotlight staff. American Free Press articles have accused Israel of being behind the World Trade Center attacks.

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has found a receptive audience for his antisemitic message in Russia (see ASW 2000/1). In June 2001, Duke’s organization NOFEAR (National Organization for European American Rights), based in Mandeville, Louisiana, lost a lawsuit brought by a sportswear company with a similar name, and was forced to change its name. It is now called the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, or EURO. EURO joined other right-wing extremists with a spate of its own antisemitic pronouncements following the events of 11 September.

The Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, headed by Jeff Berry of Butler, Indiana, is one of the most active Klan (KKK) organizations in America. Prior to his arrest (see below), Berry was a leading Klan figure in America. His group held frequent rallies in cities including New York and others throughout the Midwest and the South. They also distributed propaganda by illegally stuffing fliers in free local newspapers, a technique employed as recently as December 2001 in Northern California.

Other active Klan groups include the Imperial Klans of America (IKA) and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The IKA hold an annual “Nordic Fest” event featuring White Power concerts, which attracts neo-Nazis and racist skinheads. Most Klan groups are virulently antisemitic.

Militia groups in the United States have decreased in number in the past few years, but still pose a criminal threat, as they encourage turning anti-government sentiment into action. Although most militia groups claim to be non-racist, some militia members have expressed racism or antisemitism (see ASW 2000/1). Militias are most active in Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and California. Leaders of the movement include Mark Koernke of Michigan, Charlie Puckett of Kentucky, and John Trochmann of Montana. William Cooper, a patriot leader and author of the anti-government “exposé” Behold a Pale Horse, was fatally shot after firing on sheriffs' deputies on 5 November 2001 in Eager, Arizona.

Following the events of 11 September, militia groups initially offered assistance to the government in its efforts to defend the homeland and establish order. Shortly thereafter, however, militia rhetoric turned to potential curtailment of civil liberties and how to mobilize against it. On the Internet and in print, some militia members and other anti-government groups began disseminating the notion of US government involvement in the attacks so as to justify repressive measures in the interest of “security.” In its newsletter Taking Aim, the Militia of Montana explained how and why the US was responsible for the attacks, but had let the public pin the blame on Muslim extremists. Other groups have touted similar conspiracy theories, such as the idea that the US government’s repressive measures could facilitate the establishment of an internationalist “New World Order.”

Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the black separatist Nation of Islam (NOI), has continued to preach that Jews control the lives of African-Americans. In June 2001, Farrakhan addressed a “Hip-Hop Summit” organized by recording industry mogul Russell Simmons. NOI national assistant Benjamin Muhammad (Chavis) served as a summit moderator while the Fruit of Islam, NOI’s security force, provided security. It seems that this type of appearance can help Farrakhan gain legitimacy – particularly among impressionable young people who make up much of the hip-hop music audience.

Although Farrakhan was quick to condemn the September 11 attacks as “vicious and atrocious,” he was later critical of the Bush administration in his Holy Day of Atonement speech marking the sixth anniversary of the Million Man March in October 2001. Farrakhan argued that America had brought hatred upon itself by virtue of its foreign policy, especially among the oil-producing countries of the Middle East.

At the Saviors’ Day convention held in Los Angeles on 13–17 February 2002, approximately 14,000 men, women and children attended Farrakhan’s keynote address. He made particular reference to the conflict in the Middle East, but was relatively restrained. (“If you were Jewish and you saw unarmed Jews being persecuted, wouldn’t you come to your brother’s aid? … That situation there [in Israel] is horrible and as a Muslim I feel the pain of the Palestinians, but as a human being I feel the pain of the Jews, as well.”)

The main NOI website continues to maintain links to several of Farrakhan’s past speeches, including some in which he makes racist and antisemitic remarks. The NOI Student Association site is also linked to the antisemitic and Holocaust denying website of Ahmed Rami’s Radio Islam (see Sweden). Other NOI links lead to a range of articles hostile to Jews, including the NOI’s infamous publication The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews, which charges that Jews bear major responsibility for the colonial slave trade. The NOI has posted many anti-Israel articles in connection with the Middle East conflict.

After Khalid Abdul Muhammad, national chairman of the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), also a racist, black nationalist movement, died on 17 February 2001, Malik Zulu Shabazz became the group’s new leader. Shabazz has a long record of antisemitism. In November 2001, the NBPP joined members of the American Muslim community for a televised conference in which they labeled the US and Israel as “the number one and number two terrorists right now on the planet.” Shabazz added, “Zionism is racism, Zionism is terrorism, Zionism is colonialism, Zionism is imperialism, and support for Zionism is the root of why so many were killed on September 11.”

The Nation of Aztlan, a small California-based Latino group that has emerged as virulently antisemitic, responded similarly. After the September 11 attacks, Hector Carreon, editor of its publication La Voz de Aztlan, claimed that the attacks had occurred because the US supported an “Israeli apartheid policy” that “has made all of Islam our mortal enemy.” Carreon later blamed the Florida anthrax outbreak and the anthrax-laced letters sent to TV anchorman Tom Brokaw and Senator Tom Daschle as the work of Jews/Zionists, claiming, “Jews had an illustrious history in biological research.” Everyone assumes that the dangers we face come from Islamic terrorists, Carreon wrote, “but our experience has been different. We fear Zionist terrorists more. They have been trying to take away our constitutional right of freedom of political expression through acts of terrorism.”

 

ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITIES

Organized hate groups including the various white supremacist organizations, Klan factions and “Identity” churches remain unremitting sources of anti-Jewish hostility. Smaller extremist and neo-Nazi groups operating Internet sites have succeeded in reaching an audience that is disproportionate to their size. While most antisemitic activity in the US is limited to hate propaganda, members of extremist organizations and their associates sometimes engage in threats, violence and vandalism.

The total number of antisemitic incidents in 2001 decreased from the year 2000. The fall may be explained, inter alia, by heightened security awareness in response to the events of 11 September and the US campaign against terrorism.

Forty states and the District of Columbia reported 1,434 antisemitic incidents, marking a fall of 172 incidents below the 2000 total of 1606. This represents an 11 percent decrease in anti-Jewish activity, reversing the upward trend prior to 2001, which saw a 4 percent increase.

 

Violence, Vandalism and Harassment

Antisemitic activity reported in 2001 comprised 878 acts of harassment (intimidation, threats and assaults), virtually the same number as in 2000 (877). As in the past, harassment directed at individuals and institutions made up more than half of all incidents reported (approximately 61 percent). In addition, 556 acts of vandalism were reported – the lowest total in 20 years – reflecting a decrease of 24 percent from 2000, when 729 incidents were reported. These included arson (6) and other acts of violence against Jewish institutions, such as synagogues (105), cemetery desecrations (7) and other forms of property damage. Higher security awareness by Jewish communal institutions and significant law enforcement mobilization since 11 September may account for the substantial decrease of antisemitic vandalism incidents.

            The biggest declines in antisemitic incidents were reported in New York (408, down from 481 in 2000) and California (122, down from 257), which together account for virtually the entire decrease in the totals. A total of 86 anti-Jewish incidents were reported on college campuses nationwide, a 25 percent increase from 2000 (69 incidents). After a five-year trend of decline, campus incidents have risen for two consecutive years.

            Among the worst antisemitic incidents were a shooting and a bomb threat directed at a synagogue in Des Moines, Iowa; a synagogue arson in Tacoma, Washington; a cemetery desecration in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and the mailing of Holocaust denial materials to a Holocaust survivor in New York City. (None of these acts resulted in personal injury.). To date, one person, a 19-year-old man, has been arrested in connection with the Des Moines, Iowa, incident.

 

Propaganda

The Ku Klux Klan, World Church of the Creator, National Alliance, Christian Identity groups and others continue to canvass neighborhoods, generally under cover of darkness, by dropping propaganda either directly on people’s lawns or stuffed inside newspapers (“night riding”).

A newer twist involved a convergence, in the wake of 11 September, between American right- and left-wing extremists – who have long exploited currents events, particularly in the Middle East, to blame America’s troubles on Jews, Israel and American foreign policy – and extremist Arabs and Muslims (see General Analysis).

Exploitation of the World Wide Web by extremists continued in new and expanded forms in 2001. Since its inception, the Internet has been shrewdly utilized by antisemites and racists seeking to create an electronic community of hate to help further their goals. Moreover, as noted above, some of this material is used by Islamic extremists who recycle it on their websites and redistribute it via their own e-mail lists.

The web also helps extremists coordinate their offline activities more effectively. Some websites, such as Stormfront, compile listings of upcoming events sponsored by a variety of organizations. Some extremists use the Internet to actively manage events such as hate rock concerts and patriot or militia group meetings. Antisemitic groups such as the National Alliance are increasingly using private, members-only e-mail lists and web pages to coordinate their activities.

There are literally hundreds of websites that spread racism and antisemitism, as well as Holocaust denial and revisionism; virtually every prominent extremist group and many extremist individuals now have their own sites. Extremists and groups with established hate sites include white supremacist David Duke, the neo-Nazi National Alliance, Tom Metzger of White Aryan Resistance, Matt Hale and the WCOTC, “Identity” Church movement members, and a host of neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, “Aryan” women’s groups and Klan chapters. Holocaust denial groups such as the Institute for Historical Review and the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, as well as a number of militia groups, are also accessible online.

A striking outgrowth of this exploitation of the Internet is the attempt of hate groups to capitalize on the popularity of computer video games – especially among teens – by manipulating technology to create violently racist and antisemitic versions of popular games. Games with titles such as “Ethnic Cleansing” and “Shoot the Blacks” may be previewed, purchased and downloaded from some of the nation’s most dangerous neo-Nazi, white supremacist and Holocaust denial groups.

            Other antisemitic and racist websites have launched new games, or modified older ones to give them a racist underpinning. Many of these games are visually realistic and violently racist. For example, WCOTC offers several downloadable games as part of a newly created “comedy” page. The Creator website features several “run the concentration camp” theme games and others in this vein. Nebraska-based neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Gary Lauck offers several games, including one set in Auschwitz where the player is challenged to shoot “Jewish” rats racing between canisters of Zyklon B and a Star of David. One of the leading suppliers of Nazi paraphernalia to Germany, where such material is illegal, Lauck served prison time in Germany in the 1990s for inciting racial hatred and antisemitism.

 

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE HOLOCAUST AND THE NAZI ERA

Holocaust Denial

Since 1979 the California-based Institute for Historical Review (IHR) has been the most active Holocaust denying organization in the United States. In addition to publishing its Journal of Historical Review, it has hosted thirteen conferences featuring an international roster of Holocaust deniers including David Irving, Arthur Butz, Paul Rassinier, Ernst Zündel, Fredrick Toben, and others. Though the conferences have usually been held in California, the 2001 conference was scheduled to take place in Beirut, Lebanon. In coordination with its Swiss counterpart Vérité et Justice (see Switzerland), IHR announced that the theme of the conference would be “Revisionism and Zionism,” and would feature addresses in Arabic, French and English.

Soon after the conference was announced, several Jewish organizations voiced their concern about the possibility that the conference would lead to increased antisemitism in the region. Others also urged the Lebanese government to ban the conference, including, according to reports in the Arab press, the US State Department. On 30 March, IHR and Vérité et Justice officially announced that the conference had been called off, although some free-speech advocates in the West decried the decision (for more details, see Arab Countries).

            In July 2001 a British court denied David Irving the right to appeal the decision of Judge Charles Gray in the libel suit that Irving had brought against the historian Dr. Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books Ltd, for labeling him a Holocaust denier (see ASW 2000/1). Nevertheless, Irving presided over his third “Real History USA” conference from 31 August to 3 September 2001, bringing a variety of Holocaust deniers and controversial figures together in a Cincinnati hotel. Speakers included journalist Joseph Sobran, IHR director Mark Weber, Canadian lawyer Douglas Christie, conspiracy theorist Michael A. Hoffman II and black studies professor Tony Martin.

 

RESPONSES TO RACISM AND ANTISEMITISM

Legislation/Law Enforcement

Forty-five states and the District of Columbia now have penalty-enhanced hate crime laws. Moreover, the Federal Hate Crime Statistics Act requires the Justice Department to acquire data on crimes which “manifest prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity” from law enforcement agencies across the country and to publish an annual summary of its findings.

 

Legal Action

Nebraska-based neo-Nazi Gary Lauck, dubbed the “Farmbelt Führer” for his racist views, was ordered, in January 2002, by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a body of the United Nations, to stop using the German name for interior ministry in his website address. The German government had applied to the WIPO to gain an injunction against Lauck, saying he was using addresses confusingly similar to the web address of the German Interior Ministry for his neo-Nazi website. WIPO agreed that the word for interior ministry could be considered a trademark. This incident was the latest in a series of legal battles concerning neo-Nazi activity on the web.

In December 2001, Jeff Berry, Imperial Wizard of the Dekalb County, Indiana-based Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay $120,000 to two television journalists. A reporter and cameraperson claimed that in November 1999 Berry had locked them in a room in his home and held them hostage until they handed over their interview tapes, because he suspected their report would criticize the Klan. Berry was also charged with theft, conspiracy to commit intimidation and conspiracy to commit robbery with a deadly weapon.

Alex Curtis, a San Diego-based radical voice of the racist right, pleaded guilty on 6 June 2001 to three federal counts of conspiracy to violate civil rights. He was sentenced to three years minus time already served. Curtis promotes a violent white supremacist revolution aimed at toppling the United States government, which he considers “a Jew-occupied government,” and replacing it with a “race-centered” government, with citizenship and residency restricted to “those of pure White ancestry.” Curtis employed the Internet, his Nationalist Observer newsletter and a telephone hotline to spread his message.

On 30 November 2001, brothers Matthew and Tyler Williams were sentenced to federal prison for torching three Sacramento synagogues on 18 June 1999, and an abortion clinic two weeks later. They pleaded guilty, admitting they had set the synagogues ablaze simply because they were Jewish houses of worship. Hate literature was found at two of the scenes. Under the terms of their plea agreements, Matthew, the older brother, received a 30-year sentence and a $10,000 fine, while Tyler was sentenced to 21 years plus three months. In addition, the brothers were jointly ordered to pay restitution of just over one million dollars to the victims.

White supremacists Leo Felton, 31, and girlfriend Erica Chase, 22, were arrested in April 2001, indicted in December 2001 and convicted in July 2002 on several federal charges, including conspiracy to bomb Jewish and African-American targets in the Boston area in order to trigger a “racial holy war.” A federal jury found the pair guilty of conspiring to build a destructive device, counterfeiting, obstruction of justice, and several firearms violations. Felton was also found guilty of bank robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and trying to obtain explosives with the intent to kill or injure and to damage property. Both had been involved with white supremacist groups: Felton with the prison gang Aryan Brotherhood and the White Order of Thule, and Chase with WCOTC and the Hammerskins. It was revealed during the trial that Felton is the son of an interracial couple who were active in the civil rights movement during the 1960s.

On 3 May 2001, Thomas Blanton Jr. was found guilty of murdering four African-American girls in the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Blanton is appealing the decision. Also charged with murder arising out of the same crime is Bobby Frank Cherry. A court found him incompetent to stand trial. That ruling is also being appealed.

In September 2001, Richard Baumhammers received five consecutive death sentences for murdering five people, including his Jewish neighbor, and seriously wounding a sixth, in a racially motivated shooting spree in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 28 April 2000. Baumhammers was convicted in May 2001 of five counts of first-degree murder and 20 other charges related to the shootings, including the desecration of two Jewish synagogues. Baumhammers reportedly visited Internet hate sites, including Stormfront, and downloaded information from neo-Nazis and white supremacists before going on his rampage. Like other “lone wolf” white supremacist murderers, all of his victims were Jewish, African-American or Asian-American. Shortly after Baumhammers’ spree, White Aryan Resistance leader Tom Metzger lauded his actions.