Sam Francis | |
|---|---|
| Born | Samuel Todd Francis (1947-04-29)April 29, 1947 Chattanooga, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | February 15, 2005(2005-02-15) (aged 57) Cheverly, Maryland, U.S. |
| Resting place | Forest Hills Cemetery, Chattanooga, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Johns Hopkins University(BA in History) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill(PhD in Modern History) |
| Occupations |
|
Samuel Todd Francis (April 29, 1947 – February 15, 2005) was an American writer.[1][2][3][4][5] He was a columnist and editor for the conservativeWashington Times until he was dismissed after making racist remarks at the 1995American Renaissance conference.[6] Francis would later become a "dominant force" on theCouncil of Conservative Citizens, awhite supremacist organization identified as ahate group by theSouthern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).[6][7] Francis was the chief editor of the council's newsletter,Citizens Informer, until his death in 2005.[7] The white supremacistJared Taylor called Francis "the premier philosopher of white racial consciousness of our time".[8]
The political scientist and writerGeorge Michael, an expert on extremism, identified Francis as one of "the far right's higher-caliber intellectuals."[9] The SPLC described Francis as an importantwhite nationalist writer known for his "ubiquitous presence of his columns in racist forums and his influence over the general direction of right-wing extremism" in the United States.[7] The journalistLeonard Zeskind called Francis the "philosopher king" of theradical right,[7] writing that, "By any measure, Francis's white nationalism was as subtle as an eight-pound hammer pounding on a twelve inchI beam."[2] The political analystChip Berlet described Francis as an ultraconservative ideologue akin toPat Buchanan,[10] whom Francis advised.[11] Theanarcho-capitalist political theoristHans-Hermann Hoppe called Francis "one of the leading theoreticians and strategists of the Buchananite movement."[12]
Francis was born inChattanooga, Tennessee. He received a bachelor's degree fromJohns Hopkins University in 1969, and a master's degree in 1971 and doctorate in 1979 from theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[5]
Francis was a policy analyst at theHeritage Foundation and an aide to the U.S. senatorJohn P. East before joining the editorial staff ofThe Washington Times in 1986.[13][3] Five years later, he became a columnist for the newspaper, and his column became syndicated.[13]
In addition to his journalistic career, Francis was an adjunct scholar at theLudwig von Mises Institute ofAuburn,Alabama.[14]
In June 1995, editor-in-chiefWesley Pruden "had cut back on Francis' column" afterThe Washington Times ran his essay criticizing theSouthern Baptist Convention for its approval of a resolution which apologized forslavery.[15] In the piece, Francis asserted that, "The contrition of the Southern Baptists for slavery and racism is a bit more than a politically fashionable gesture intended to massage race relations"[16] and that "Neither slavery nor racism as an institution is a sin."[13]
In September 1995, Pruden fired Francis fromThe Washington Times after the conservative journalistDinesh D'Souza, in a column inThe Washington Post, described Francis's appearance at the 1994American Renaissance conference: "A lively controversialist, Francis began with some largely valid complaints about how the Southern heritage is demonized in mainstream culture. He went on, however, to attack the liberal principles of humanism and universalism for facilitating 'the war against the white race.' At one point he described country music megastarGarth Brooks as 'repulsive' because 'he has that stupid universalist song(We Shall Be Free), in which we all intermarry.' His fellow whites, he insisted, must 'reassert our identity and our solidarity, and we must do so in explicitly racial terms through the articulation of a racial consciousness as whites… The civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowments of the creating people, nor is there any reason to believe that the civilization can be successfully transmitted to a different people.'"[17]
After D'Souza's column was published, Pruden "decided he did not want the Times associated with such views after looking into other Francis writings, in which he advocated the possible deportation of legal immigrants and forced birth control for welfare mothers."[13]
Francis said soon after the firing that "I believe there are racial differences, there are natural differences between the races. I don't believe that one race is better than another. There's reasonably solid evidence forIQ differences, personality and behavior differences. I understand those things have been taken to justify segregation and white supremacy. That is not my intent."[13]
After being fired fromThe Washington Times, Francis continued to write a column, which was syndicated throughCreators Syndicate at least as early as January 2000.[18]
Francis became a "dominant force" on theCouncil of Conservative Citizens.[19] Francis was the chief editor of the council's quarterly newsletter,Citizens Informer, until his death in 2005.[7] Francis wrote the council'sStatement of Principles, which "called for America to be a Christian nation"[20] and "oppose[d] all efforts to mix the races of mankind."[21] In his writings, Francis advocated for a moratorium on all immigration, plus an indefinite suspension of all immigration from non-European and non-Western people.[20]
Francis was also an editor ofThe Occidental Quarterly, awhite nationalist journal edited byKevin Lamb and sponsored byWilliam Regnery II.
He served as a contributor and editor of theIntercollegiate Studies Institute's quarterly,Modern Age. After his dismissal fromThe Washington Times and thePittsburgh Tribune-Review, Francis continued to write a syndicated column forVDARE andChronicles magazine,[3] and spoke at meetings of American Renaissance and the Council of Conservative Citizens. He attended theAmerican Friends of the British National Party's meeting on April 22, 2000, where he heard and metNick Griffin, then the leader of the fascistBritish National Party and a futuremember of the European Parliament.[independent source needed] His articles also appeared inMiddle American News. Francis' last published work was an article penned for the 2005IHS Press anti-war anthology,Neo-Conned!.[independent source needed]
Francis died on February 15, 2005, at Prince George's Hospital Center inCheverly, Maryland, following an unsuccessful surgery to treat anaortic aneurysm. He was 57.[22] Francis was buried at the foot ofLookout Mountain.[citation needed]
Francis's term "anarcho-tyranny" refers to armed dictatorship withoutrule of law,[23] or aHegelian synthesis when the state tyrannically or oppressively regulates citizens' lives yet is unable or unwilling to enforce fundamental protective law.[24][25] Commentators have invoked the term in reference to situations when governments focus on weapon confiscation instead of stopping looters.[23][26] On Francis's death, theRockford Institute magazineChronicles dedicated its April 2005 issue to his memory and the concept.[27][independent source needed] Francis had a significant influence on thepaleoconservative movement.[28]
Francis argued that the conservative movement was made of "beautiful losers", being either "rootless men" attracted to archaic things or crypto-liberals who sometimes resist progressive change before eventually caving in. He argued that the political right kept losing because it was too focused on ideas and less on power. According to Francis, the political left has dominated politics due to the ascendancy of a progressivemanagerial class, leading to more bureaucratization and more state power while eroding the power of other authorities in society. To combat the emergence of this new class, Francis argued that the political right needed a base for its goals, this base being the white middle class or "Middle American radicals." In order to capture this base for the political right, Francis argued in favor of emphasizing "crime, educational collapse, the erosion of their economic status, and the calculated subversion of their social, cultural, and national identity" to create a class identity for this group.[28]
Writing inThe Week, the commentator Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote that Francis's writings, and his rejection ofmovement conservatism, presagedDonald Trump's victory in the2016 U.S. presidential election.[11] In September 2017 theNew York Times columnistDavid Brooks wrote: "The only time I saw Sam Francis face-to-face — inThe Washington Times cafeteria sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s — I thought he was a crank, but it's clear now that he was at that moment becoming one of the most prescient writers of the past 50 years. There's very little Donald Trump has done or said that Francis didn't champion a quarter century ago."[29] In 2023, the historian Joshua Tait said that "Before a Trump-inspired resurgence in interest in Francis, he was a cautionary tale from conservative intellectual history."[30]
During the2022 U.S. elections, theRepublican Party candidatesBlake Masters andJoe Kent promoted Francis' writings.[3]
Although Francis sometimes engaged withChristian thinkers and publications during his life, he was also harshlycritical of Christianity in his later years and his worldview has been described asirreligious andmaterialistic. Francis wrote that "Christianity today is the enemy of the West and the race that created it" and suggested that the "religious wrong" operated under a "false consciousness" that prevented white Christians from recognizing their true interests. Because of this, he has been cited as part of a trend toward increasingly "secular, evenpagan" ideas among certain segments of the American radical right.[31][32]
Sam Francis, a white supremacist writer and veteran of such publications as The Washington Times, the CCC's Citizens Informer, and The Occidental Quarterly, died in February 2005 at the age of 57.
