ADL’s Center on Extremism tracked an ever-growing number of white supremacist propaganda efforts in 2019, including the distribution of racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ fliers, stickers, banners and posters. The 2019 data shows an increase of incidents both on and off campus, with a total of 2,713 cases reported (averaging more than four incidents per day), compared to 1,214 in 2018 – a doubling in activity year over year. This is the highest number of propaganda incidents ADL has ever recorded.
Propaganda allows white supremacists to maximize media and online attention, while limiting the risk of individual exposure, negative media coverage, arrests and public backlash that often accompanies more public events. The barrage of propaganda, which overwhelmingly features veiled white supremacist language with a patriotic slant, is an effort to normalize white supremacists’ message and bolster recruitment efforts while targeting minority groups including Jews, Blacks, Muslims, non-white immigrants and the LGBTQ community.
The 2019 propaganda touched every state except Hawaii, with the highest levels of activity in the states of California, Texas, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, Washington and Florida. ADL’s H.E.A.T. Map provides a visual representation of the propaganda distribution efforts by geographic location and highlights other specific trends.
Campuses remain a target
Although white supremacists have always leafleted U.S. campuses, their campaign targeting college students ramped up in January 2016 and has continued since then. More than four years later, their on-campus propaganda efforts are still on the rise.
Approximately one-fourth (630) of the total (2,711) white supremacist propaganda incidents in 2019 took place on campus – nearly double the 320 campus incidents counted in 2018. The 2019 propaganda efforts targeted 433 different campuses in 43 states and the District of Columbia. An overwhelming majority of the campuses (90 percent) were targeted only once or twice, which suggests that despite their increased efforts, white supremacists seem to have failed to gain a sustained foothold on campus.
For the 2019 fall semester, September through December, ADL documented 410 incidents – more than double any proceeding semester and a 159 percent increase from the 158 incidents counted during the 2019 spring semester. The semester to semester increase was largely due to a propaganda distribution campaign orchestrated by Patriot Front that specifically focused on college campuses during the months of September and October.
The perpetrators
Over the course of 2019, dozens of white supremacist groups distributed propaganda, but three groups - Patriot Front, American Identity Movement and the New Jersey European Heritage Association - were responsible for approximately 90 percent of the activity.
Texas-based Patriot Front was responsible for 66 percent of all propaganda incidents (67 percent of non-campus and 59 percent of on-campus), far more than any other group. The group distributed propaganda in all but two states (Hawaii and Delaware), but was most active in Texas, California, Massachusetts, Ohio, Virginia and New York.
Since its formation in August 2017, Patriot Front has used its own iteration of “patriotism” to promote its white supremacist and neo-fascist ideology. In 2019, the group continued to use red, white and blue color-schemed propaganda. It also added a few new messages to its propaganda repertoire, including “One Nation Against Invasion,” “For the Nation Against the State” and “America is Not for Sale.”
Flash demonstrations – unannounced, quickly disbanded gatherings – remained an alternative to pre-announced events. Patriot Front relied most frequently on this tactic, staging demonstrations at the Virginia Israel Advisory Board, various Israeli consulates, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) offices and a memorial for the USS Liberty.
AIM held just a few flash demonstrations in 2019, but one of them was among the year’s largest events, which took place in March and included approximately 80 AIM members demonstrating in front of the Tennessee state capitol building. The League of the South used the tactic several times as well, including at a February appearance at Little Rock’s Central High School (the site of forced desegregation in 1957) and a November appearance at a Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, memorial for Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American who was lynched in 1955.
Some flash demonstrations took the form of counter-protests, as white supremacists demonstrated against a range of events including ICE protests, diversity and pride festivals, book readings and the removal of Confederate monuments.
The most vitriolic counter-protest took place when approximately 15 members of the Shield Wall Network disrupted a Holocaust memorial event in Russellville, Arkansas, chanting “6 million more,” waving swastika flags, stomping on Israeli flags and holding signs that read, “The Holocaust didn’t happen, but it should have” and “YHVH [Yehovah] has the oven preheated.”
Private gatherings in 2019 were small and localized. ADL counted 27 such events throughout the year, including several Klan rallies on private property that drew one- or two-dozen attendees.
The best attended events drew individuals from different organizations. In July, roughly two dozen individuals from United Federation of Klans, American Christian Dixie Knights, United Klans of American and the Nationalist Socialist Movement gathered on private property in Tazewell, Tennessee, to burn a swastika and a cross.
So called “suit and tie” white supremacists held a number of (fairly well attended) private conferences in 2019. These events, sponsored by groups including American Identity Movement, American Renaissance, American Freedom Party and the Council of Conservative Citizens, typically drew between 50 and 150 attendees. All were held at the Montgomery Bell State Park in Burns, Tennessee, a public location that remains a favorite for white supremacists who are forced out of private venues. Tennessee state parks are required by law to allow any group – regardless of ideology – to rent their facilities.
Source: ADL