National Socialist Movement | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abbreviation | NSM |
| Leader | Burt Colucci[fn 1] |
| Founders | Robert Brannen Clifford "Cliff" Herrington |
| Founded | 1974; 51 years ago (1974) |
| Split from | American Nazi Party |
| Headquarters | Lakeland, Florida |
| Newspaper | NSM Magazine (2007-2017)[1] |
| Youth wing | Viking Youth Corp (inactive)[2] |
| Membership | 400 (c. 2011)[3] Less than 25 (c. 2024)[4] |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-right[11] |
| International affiliation | World Union of National Socialists[12] |
| Colors | Red,white andblue (national colors) Black (customary) |
| Ethnic group | White Americans |
| Members in elected offices | 0 |
| Party flag | |
.svg) | |
| Website | |
| nsm88 | |
_(2016).svg)
TheNational Socialist Movement (NSM orNSM88)[fn 2] is aNeo-Nazi organization and political party based in theUnited States.[7][13] Once considered to be the largest and most prominentNeo-Nazi organization in the United States, since the late 2010s its membership and prominence have plummeted.[4] It was a part of theNationalist Front[14] and it is classified as ahate group by theSouthern Poverty Law Center.[15]
The NSM is described by theAnti-Defamation League as "one of the more explicitly neo-Nazi groups in the United States." It seeks the transformation of theUnited States into awhite ethnostate from whichJews, non-Whites, and members of theLGBTQ community would be expelled and barred from citizenship.[4][15]
The National Socialist Movement was founded in 1974 inSt. Paul, Minnesota, by Robert Brannen and Clifford "Cliff" Herrington. Originally known as the "National Socialist American Workers Freedom Movement", it was one of several groups that split off from theAmerican Nazi Party after the assassination ofGeorge Lincoln Rockwell.
Brannen originally served as the group's leader, but in 1983, Herrington succeeded him after Brannen had suffered multiple strokes. The group was tiny and largely unknown until 1993 when Herrington and another member wore Nazi uniforms to a Minnesota legislative committee hearing to protest a proposed gay rights bill.[16]
In 1994,Jeff Schoep became the group's chairman,[17] a position which he held until January 2019.[18] Herrington remained co-chairman of the NSM until 2006. That year, he and his family left the NSM after conflict within the NSM following the discovery that his wife, Andrea Herrington, was the "high-priestess" of thetheistic Satanist organization and websiteJoy of Satan Ministries (now referred to as the Temple of Zeus). At the time, Joy of Satan Ministries shared aP.O. box address with an Oklahoma chapter of the NSM.[19][20][21]
The Herringtons' ties with Joy of Satan Ministries had caused several top members belonging to theChristian Identity movement to leave in anger. The Christianity Identity movement holds that only white people are descended from Adam and Eve and thus human, and often also claims that modern Jews are literal, biological descendants of Satan. Another member,Bill White, was forced out of the NSM by Schoep after publicly ridiculing Christian Identity theology in defense of Herrington.[22][23] Despite his official departure from the NSM, Cliff Herrington participated in a handful of NSM events in 2009 and 2010.[16]
In 2004, it was revealed that the NSM'sIndiana state leader, John Edward Snyder, was a convicted rapist who had been released from prison and banned from having contact with minors in 2003.[15]
The National Socialist Movement was responsible for leading the demonstration which sparked the2005 Toledo riot.[24] In April 2006, they held a rally on the State Capitol steps inLansing, Michigan, which was met by a larger counter-rally and ended in scuffles.[25]
In January 2007, Gordon Creal Young, a formerKu Klux Klan leader inMaryland who had disbanded his chapter to join the NSM was arrested forstatutory rape. He was accused of forcing an underaged girl to performfellatio on him on two separate occasions.[26] He was eventually acquitted.[15]
In December 2007, the organization's headquarters was moved toDetroit, Michigan.[16]
In January 2008, Mariusz Wdziekonski, a 21-year old NSM member was charged after vandalizing 57 graves at theWestlawn Cemetery, aJewish cemetery in Illinois. He was aPolish immigrant who had been in the United States since 2004. On December 17, 2010, he was convicted on two counts offelony vandalism and sentenced to 7 years in prison, the maximum sentence.[27][28]
In January 2009, the National Socialist Movement sponsored a half-mile section ofU.S. Highway 160 outside ofSpringfield, Missouri, as part of the Adopt-A-Highway Trash Cleanup program.[29] The highway was later renamed the "Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway" by the state legislature.[30]
In 2009, the National Socialist Movement had 61 chapters in 35 states, making it the largest neo-Nazi group in the United States according to theSouthern Poverty Law Center. In this year,Wikileaks published internal NSM emails on their website.[31]
On April 17, 2010, 70 members of the National Socialist Movement demonstrated in front of theLos Angeles City Hall, drawing a counter protest of hundreds ofanti-fascist demonstrators.[8]
On May 1, 2011,Jeff Hall, a leader of the California branch of the National Socialist Movement, was killed by his 10-year-old emotionally troubled son, who claimed he was tired of Hall beating him and his stepmother.[32] Hall had run in 2010 for a seat on the board of directors of a Riverside County water board, a race in which he earned approximately 30% of the vote.[33] Around this time, the National Socialist Movement was described byThe New York Times as being "the largest supremacist group, with about 400 members in 32 states, though much of its prominence followed the decay of Aryan Nation and other neo-Nazi groups".[3]
The National Socialist Movement held a rally on September 3, 2011, inWest Allis, Wisconsin, to protest incidents at theWisconsin State Fair on August 5, 2011, when a large crowd of young African-Americans allegedly targeted and beatwhite people as they left the fair around 11 p.m. Police claimed that the incident began as a fight amongAfrican-American youths that was not racially motivated.[34][35] Dan Devine, the mayor ofWest Allis, stated on September 2, 2011, "I believe I speak for the citizens when I say they [the National Socialist Movement] are not welcome here."[36]
In August 2012, the NSM'sNevada state leader, Josh Davenport, was arrested on kidnapping and sexual assault charges. He was alleged to have kidnapped and raped a 13-year old girl at gunpoint before she escaped his apartment.[15][37]
On September 22, 2013, the NSM held a meeting inLeith, North Dakota in support ofCraig Cobb's attempt to turn the town into a neo-Nazi stronghold. The meeting was met by a counterprotest drawing hundreds of participants, most of whom wereNative Americans from theStanding Rock Reservation and other nearby reservations.[38]
In June 2016, the group helped organize with theTraditionalist Worker Party the rally which turned into the2016 Sacramento riot.[39][40]
In November 2016, following the first election ofDonald Trump, the organization replaced theswastika in its logo and flag with theothala rune in an attempt to enter mainstream politics, which they would use until March 2019.[41][42]
In January 2017, the pilot of the television seriesHate Thy Neighbor featured the National Socialist Movement and prominent member Daniel Burnside.
In August 2017, the NSM and their former coalition, theNationalist Front, infamously participated in theUnite the Right rally inCharlottesville, Virginia during which a counter-protestor was murdered and thirty-five more were injured in acar ramming attack. After the rally, two lawsuits targeting 21 racist "alt-right" andhate group leaders, including the National Socialist Movement and Schoep, were filed in theU.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia (Sines v. Kessler) and another lawsuit was filed inVirginia Circuit Court.[43]
The attacker was not an NSM member, although he had been photographed holding a shield that was handed out byVanguard America, which was part of the Nationalist Front. Vanguard America condemned the attack and said the attacker was not a member but rather the shields had been handed out to anyone interested.[44]
Nonetheless, the legal consequences stemming from their participation in Charlottesville lead to the collapse of the Nationalist Front and the decline of the NSM. Their last significant rally would be held in October 2017, a "White Lives Matter" rally inShelbyville, Tennessee which drew around 100 white supremacists and around 200 counter-protestors. An additional rally was planned in nearbyMurfreesboro but was cancelled, although the accompanying counter-protest and anti-racist march was not cancelled and drew nearly 1,000 participants.[45] Schoep'sTwitter account wassuspended on December 18, 2017.[46][47] By February 2018, the Nationalist Front had crumbled.[4][15]
In April 2018, the NSM's annual rally to celebrateHitler's birthday drew only around two dozen participants and around 100 counter-protestors.[15] In November 2018, the National Socialist movement held a rally at theArkansas State Capitol, which would be their last under the leadership of Schoep. Twenty people participated, and one member was seen carrying the flag of theAWB as well as theflag of apartheid-era South Africa.[48]
On February 28, 2019, theAssociated Press reported that, according to Michigan corporate records, Schoep had been replaced as director and president of the National Socialist Movement in January byJames Hart Stern, aBlackcivil rights activist.
In 2014, Stern and Schoep became friends when Schoep called Stern to ask about his connection toEdgar Ray Killen, the head of the Klan chapter that Stern dissolved.[fn 3] When Stern learned that Schoep was a white supremacist, he arranged for a meeting between the two men. They engaged in debates about theHolocaust, the swastika, White nationalism, and the fate of the National Socialist Movement, with Stern attempting to change Schoep's mind. He could not do that, but in 2019, Schoep came to him and asked for his advice concerning the group's legal problems. Schoep had wanted to leave the NSM because he feared the legal repercussions of their involvement in the Unite the Right rally. Stern then encouraged Schoep to turn control of the NSM over to him, and Schoep agreed.[18]
Stern filed documents with a Federal court in Virginia, asking that it issue a judgment against the group before one of the pending Charlottesville-related lawsuits went to trial, but because the law does not allow a corporation to be its own attorney, Stern looked for outside counsel to re-file the papers.[18]
Stern originally did not plan to dissolve the movement, in order to prevent any of its former members from reincorporating it, but he planned to use his position to undermine the group. He wanted to turn the groups website into a website forHolocaust education, took credit for Schoep's decision to replace the swastika with the othala rune as the group's symbol, and said that he would be meeting with Schoep to sign a proclamation in which the movement would disavow white supremacy.[18][50][49]
The group's former community outreach director,Matthew Heimbach, commented that Schoep had been in conflict with its membership, which resisted the ideological changes that Schoep wished to make, because they believed that the group should continue to exist as "a politically impotent white supremacist gang". Heimbach estimated that the group had 40 dues-paying members as of 2018. In a video posted on his blog, Stern took credit for "eradicating" the National Socialist Movement.[50][49]
In March 2019, Schoep announced that he was leaving the NSM and he was giving his position toBurt Colucci. He declared that Stern was not the legitimate leader of the organization.[51][52] Since then, Schoep has renounced his racist past and he has also renounced his involvement in all racist groups.[53]
Despite Stern’s efforts, Colucci continued to operate the group’s website. Colucci quickly reversed the reforms made by Schoep, and he reinstated the swastika as the group's official symbol.[4][54]
The dispute over the leadership of the NSM led to a legal battle between Stern and Colucci, and as a result, each of them filed corporation registrations in their respective home states: Stern in California, and Colucci in Florida. The original incorporation in Michigan was dissolved in June 2019. Stern also filed a lawsuit seeking a ruling barring anyone from interfering in his operation of the group, but he died ofbladder cancer in October 2019, leaving Colucci as thede facto leader of the NSM.[55][56]
The NSM does not keep an official count of its membership, but according to the Anti-Defamation League, since Colucci took control of the NSM, its membership has fallen to one or two dozen and it has continued to fail to attract a significant amount of participation at its events, leading the ADL to comment that the dispute between Stern and Colucci negatively impacted the group's reputation.[4]
Colucci and nine other members of the NSM protested against a Detroit pride festival in June 2019, in a rally that garnered international attention, during which NSM members destroyed (and pretended to urinate on) anIsraeli flag.[10]
In April 2021, Colucci was arrested on aggravated assault charges inPhoenix, Arizona. Witnesses said he pulled a gun and aimed it at a black man, making threatening and racist remarks. The incident began with a dispute over trash pickup. His bail was set at $7,500. Two days before his arrest, he led a group of 15 members of the National Socialist Movement in a rally, but they expected that 100 people would attend the rally.[57] According to a January 2022 indictment, Colucci was instead charged with two counts of misdemeanor disorderly conduct and one count of felony disorderly conduct.[15]
On November 23, 2021, a federal court in Virginia found the National Socialist Movement and its former leader, Jeff Schoep, liable on charges of civil conspiracy in the Sines v. Kessler case against the organizers of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally.[15]
In January 2022, Colucci was arrested again along with two other members of the NSM after they attacked David Newstat, a Jewish man who confronted them during a rally. Colucci and one other member were both charged with assault, and the other member was charged with grand theft.[58] Colucci was not convicted until April 2024. He was found guilty of misdemeanor battery, although he had originally been charged with assault and battery with hate crime enhancements. He was scheduled to be sentenced on May 2, 2024.[needs update][59]
In June 2023, Colucci led 4 other members in a rally in Lakeland, Florida, but he also expected that 100 people would attend this rally.[60][61]
In 2024, long-time member Daniel Burnside,[who?] who had previously received international media attention, left the NSM, denounced the far-right, and asked for forgiveness for his past.[62][relevant?]
Multiculturalism, globalism, communism, and capitalism cause conflict within nations, but also between different racial groups and communities.
The party's problems began last June, when Citizens Against Hate discovered that NSM'sTulsa post office box was shared byThe Joy of Satan Ministry, in which the wife of NSM chairman emeritus Clifford Herrington is High Priestess. [...] Within NSM ranks, meanwhile, a bitter debate was sparked over the propriety of Herrington's Joy of Satan connections. [...] Schoep moved ahead with damage-control operations by nudging chairman emeritus Herrington from his position under the cover of "attending to personal matters." But it was too late to stop NSM Minister of Radio and Information Michael Blevins, aka Vonbluvens, from followingWhite out of the party, citing disgust with Herrington's Joy of Satan ties. "Satanism," declared Blevins in his resignation letter, "affects the whole prime directive guiding the [NSM] – SURVIVAL OF THE WHITE RACE." [...] NSM was now a Noticeably Smaller Movement, one trailed in extremist circles by a strong whiff of Satanism and related charges ofsexual impropriety associated with Joy of Satan initiation rites and curiously strong teen recruitment efforts.
The NSM has had its share of movement scandal. In July 2006, it was rocked by revelations that co-founder and chairman emeritus Cliff Herrington's wife was the "High Priestess" of the Joy of Satan Ministry, and that her satanic church shared an address with theTulsa, Okla., NSM chapter. The exposure of Herrington's wife's Satanist connections caused quite a stir, particularly among those NSM members who adhered to a racist (and heretical) variant of Christianity,Christian Identity. Before the dust settled, both Herringtons were forced out of NSM.Bill White, the neo-Nazi group's energetic spokesman, also quit, taking several NSM officials with him to create a new group, the American National Socialist Workers Party.
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