Tennessee-based 'White Lives Matter' Declared Hate Group By Southern Poverty Law Center

The Southern Poverty Law Center said White Lives Matter will be added to the list of hate groups maintained by the watchdog organization.

The movement, which SPLC says is a "racist response" to the Black Lives Matter movement, will join nearly 900 other hate groups when the list is updated in February.

According to the SPLC, White Lives Matter is, or was, apparently led by Rebecca Barnette, 40, who lives in Surgoinsville, a small town in Hawkins County in upper East Tennessee. Barnette has leadership positions in numerous other white supremacist groups, such as Aryan Strikeforce and the National Socialist Movement.

Barnette led a wan effort to counter a BLM protest in Johnson City, Tenn., last year.

Initially the SPLC, which first did research on WLM in the spring, will place White Lives Matter in Tennessee on its "Hate Map," but may add other locations as more research is completed.

The Black Lives Matter movement is not considered a hate group by the SPLC. The watchdog group says leaders and founders of BLM have no advocated separatist or supremacist views and that the crux of the group's position is not anti-white, but rather that "black lives also matter."

The White Lives Matter website says the group "supports breeding practices that improve fitness, opposes dysgenic immigration, and takes a libertarian stance on other right wing gripes that don't directly turn the population non-White."

In a statement to NBC News, White Lives Matter refuted its label as a hate group.

"White Lives Matter is really about recognizing the contributions that people of European descent have made to civilization, and that we as a people and culture are worth preserving. We reject the notion that it is morally wrong for people of European descent to love and support their own race. We value Western civilization and believe that at the very least, immigrants should not make us dumber or poorer," the statement read.