New Jersey Home To 40 Hate Groups: Is Your Town On List?

By Jason Koestenblatt

A new data analysis by a nonprofit organization that monitors hate groups throughout the country shows New Jersey is the fourth most active state in the nation when it comes to hate groups, with 40 different chapters recognized.

New Jersey has 31 groups identifying as skinheads or neo-Nazi, as active groups or chapters throughout the state support the white supremacist movement, including a Ku Klux Klan chapter in Trenton known as the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Three of those groups identifying as racist skinheads, for example, are in Ocean County, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, including one in Brick Township, one in Point Pleasant Beach and one in Toms River.

There also are eight black separatist groups and one group that makes racist music, according to SPLC. One of those is in Asbury Park, according to the hate map published by the SPLC.

The Brick group is a chapter of the group call the AC Skins, a racist skinhead group that has 14 chapters in New Jersey. The Toms River hate group is a racist skinhead group that calls itself “The Hated,” while in Point Pleasant Beach, the group is “Vinlanders New Jersey,” another racist skinhead group.

The Asbury Park group is the black separatist group Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ.

New Jersey only trailed California (57), Florida (50), and New York (44) on the list of states with the most active number of hate groups. Wyoming and Rhode Island each had one, with North Dakota and Maine each claiming two active hate groups.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the organization, told the South Jersey Times the skinhead issue in New Jersey has been brewing for the last 10 years.

He told the publication, “Particularly with the AC Skins, around Atlantic City, you see a lot of chapters in places like homogonous suburbs that bump up against cities that are more diverse.”

The data collected by the SPLC were for the 2014 calendar year. Nationally, according to the organization, Patriot groups grew from 149 in 2008 to 1,360 in 2012. That figure fell to 874 in 2014.

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