National States' Rights Party | |
|---|---|
 Flag of the National States' Rights Party, based on theConfederate battle flag | |
| Leader | Edward Reed Fields J. B. Stoner |
| Founder | Edward Reed Fields |
| Founded | 1958 |
| Dissolved | 1987 |
| Headquarters | Knoxville, Tennessee |
| Newspaper | The Thunderbolt |
| Membership(1970) | 150 |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-right |
| Colors | Red,blue, andwhite (party and flag colors) |
TheNational States' Rights Party was awhite supremacist[1] political party that briefly played a role in thepolitics of the United States.
Founded in 1958 inKnoxville, Tennessee, byEdward Reed Fields, a 26-year-old chiropractor and supporter ofJ. B. Stoner, the party was based onantisemitism,racism and opposition toracial integration withAfrican Americans.[2] Party officials argued forstates' rights against the advance of thecivil rights movement, and the organization itself established relations with theKu Klux Klan andMinutemen.[3] Although awhite supremacist movement,[4] its messaging was never openlyneo-Nazi in the way that its successors in theAmerican Nazi Party were.[5]
The national chairman of the party was Stoner, who served three years in prison for bombing theBethel Baptist Church inBirmingham, Alabama.[6] The party produced a newspaper,The Thunderbolt, which was edited by Fields.[7] In 1958, the party's first year, five men with links to the NSRP were indicted for their participation in theHebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple bombing inAtlanta.[8]
On December 27, 1963, Edward Fields was brought to the US Secret Service's attention as a possible threat against protected individuals. This was divulged as part of the JFK file release.[which?] The FBI considered that Fields was "one step removed from being insane."[9]
During the1960 presidential election, at a secret meeting held in a rural lodge nearDayton, Ohio,[10] the NSRP nominatedGovernor of ArkansasOrval E. Faubus forPresident and retiredU.S. NavyRear AdmiralJohn G. Crommelin ofAlabama forVice President. Faubus, however, did not campaign on this ticket actively, and won only 0.07% of the vote (best in his native Arkansas: 6.76%).[11] The party also ran in the1964 presidential election, nominatingJohn Kasper for President andJ. B. Stoner for Vice President, although they won only 0.01%, i.e., less than 7,000 votes.[12]
In 1961, Faubus denounced the NSRP for having described theEichmann trial as a "giant propaganda hoax." Faubus said he had first-hand experience with German atrocities and that his own unit, the35th Infantry Division, had viewed some of the evidence of Eichmann's crimes. He dismissed defenders ofAdolf Eichmann as either "misguided fools or deliberate liars."[13]
The party began to expand its operations and moved to new headquarters in Birmingham in 1960. Supporters were soon kitted out in the party uniform of white shirts, black pants and ties and armbands bearing theThunderbolt version of theWolfsangel.[7]Thunderbolt itself gained a circulation of 15,000 in the late 1960s and the party became active in rallies across the United States, with events inBaltimore, Maryland, in 1966 being particularly notorious because five leading members were imprisoned for inciting riots.[7] TheFederal Bureau of Investigation targeted the NSRP under itsCOINTELPRO-WHITE HATE program.[14]
The party attempted to gain international contacts, and during the 1970s took part in annual international neo-Nazi rallies atDiksmuide inBelgium, alongside such groups as theOrder of Flemish militants and theUnited Kingdom–basedLeague of Saint George.[15] Before that, the party had been close to the British extremist leaderJohn Tyndall and hisGreater Britain Movement after Tyndall failed in his attempts to forge links withGeorge Lincoln Rockwell.[16] FinnishPatriotic Popular Front and laterNational Democratic Party led byPekka Siitoin were in cooperation with Stoner and Fields, and Siitoin published material fromThunderbolt in Finnish in his party's magazines.[17][18][19]
Five men with connections to the NSRP perpetrated the 1958Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple bombing in Atlanta, Georgia.[20]
In 1965, three men with NSRP ties murderedWillie Brewster, a black man, as they drove past him onHighway 202 outsideAnniston, Alabama. Shortly before killing Brewster, the three had attended a NSRP rally, where Reverend Connie Lynch of California decried the desegregation ofAnniston High School and urged members to whatever it took to stop desegregation.
"If it takes killing to get the Negroes out of the white man's streets and to protect our constitutional rights, I say, yes, kill them."[21]
In 1964,American Nazi Party leaderGeorge Lincoln Rockwell informed theFBI that Fields had told him that a group of right-wing former U.S. military officers, allegedly including Crommelin,Pedro del Valle, andWilliam Potter Gale, were conspiring to overthrow the federal government. Fields opposed the plot and told Rockwell that he was doing everything he could to dissuade those involved. However, Rockwell said he had no choice but to report the conspiracy, fearing that it would cause irreparable damage to the far-right cause in the United States.[22]
| Year | Presidential nominee | Home state | Previous positions | Vice presidential nominee | Home state | Previous positions | Votes | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 |  Orval Faubus |  Arkansas | Governor of Arkansas (1955–1967) |  John G. Crommelin |  Alabama | United States NavyRear Admiral Candidate forUnited States Senator from Alabama (1950,1954,1956) | 44,984 (0.07%) 0 EV | [23] |
| 1964 | John Kasper |  Tennessee | Activist Member of theKu Klux Klan |  J. B. Stoner |  Georgia | National Party Chairman Candidate forTennessee's 3rd congressional district (1948) | 6,953 (<0.1%) 0 EV |
The party's influence declined in the 1970s, as Fields began to devote more of his energies to the Ku Klux Klan. As a result, in April 1976,U.S. Attorney GeneralEdward H. Levi concluded an FBI investigation into the group after it was decided that they posed no threat.
The NSRP began its terminal decline when Stoner was convicted for a bombing in 1980. Without his leadership, the party descended into factionalism, and in August 1983, Fields was expelled for spending too much time in the Klan.[7] Jerry Ray (the brother ofJames Earl Ray) took over leadership; however, Fields maintained his control ofThe Thunderbolt.[24][25] Without its two central figures, the NSRP fell apart, and by 1987, it had ceased to exist.[7]
The group had no specific connection to the less extreme, southern conservativeStates' Rights Democratic Party, although it did share some of its views. Similarly, the party had no direct connection to the group of the same name set up in June 2005 inPhiladelphia, Mississippi, after the conviction ofEdgar Ray Killen for his role in three 1964 murders (although this group consciously picked the name to evoke Stoner's defunct movement).[26]
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