White-Supremacist Activity In Virginia Spikes In Interactive Map

WASHINGTON, DC — White supremacist propaganda materials, including the distribution of racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic fliers, stickers, banners and posters, are showing up in cities across Virginia and nationwide at an increasing rate, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League. White supremacy incidents increased 182 percent in 2018 compared to the year before, the report said.

Virginia reported 121 total incidents, including the infamous torch march by 200 white supremacists through the University of Virginia campus before a "Unite the Right" rally where a woman died when a car plowed into a crowd of counter-demonstrators. There were many other incidents reported across the state, such as the entrance sign of a summer camp at a Jewish Community Center was defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti; "Hitler was right," swastikas, and the SS symbol were painted on exterior of a JCC building in Fairfax County; and anti-gay literature that included a swastika was posted at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. The incidents are plotted on the first-of-its-kind interactive map developed by ADL experts in its Center on Extremism that details extremist and anti-Semitic incidents in the United States.

The District of Columbia tallied 60 incidents, including: 40 members of the Patriot Front, an alt right group, holding a demonstration wth a banner reading "Reclaim America"; white supremacist flyers left at American University depicted a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student; and several cases of anti-Semitic fliers left in universities and neighborhoods.

Most of the 1,187 incidents of propaganda — up from 421 incidents in 2017 — occurred on college campuses, the ADL said in its report. There were 868 incidents on college campuses, up from 129 the year before.

Much of the propaganda is distributed in flyers that allow those distributing them to remain anonymous in the face of increasing scrutiny of their beliefs yet still get their message across and recruit new members. Many of the flyers show either Andrew Jackson or George Washington on horseback with text that states: “European roots, American greatness.”

Patch has reported extremist incidents throughout the year, including KKK fliers that were distributed in Alexandria and neighborhoods surrounding Falls Church; Ku Klux Klan recruitment fliers were found in July in Leesburg, Paeonian Springs and Lovettsville; and a man was sent to prison for hate crimes against a Jewish center and church in Annandale and posting anti-Semitic fliers.

SEE ALSO: 39 Hate Groups Are Active In Virginia

“Under intensified public scrutiny, white supremacists are facing a Catch-22: As individuals, they want to remain anonymous and invisible, but they need to promote their organizations and ideology,” the ADL said in its report. “Their solution: Increased propaganda efforts, which allow them to maximize media and online attention, while limiting the risk of individual exposure, negative media coverage, arrests and public backlash.”

The two most prolific alt-right groups on college campuses were Identity Evropa, a group that recruits white, college-aged men and was responsible for 191 incidents. The other is Texas-based Patriot Front, which contributed 51 incidents. Members of that group claim “ethnic and cultural origins” of their European ancestors to espouse racism, anti-Semitism and intolerance.

Other groups that were active were Andrew Anglin supporters known as the Daily Stormer Book Clubs, which targeted campuses in 29 incidents. Neo-Nazi groups such as Vanguard America and the National Socialist Legion, as well as the now-defunct Traditionalist Worker Party, also participated in a few incidents.

But the groups were active off campus as well and dusting places like libraries, bookstores and community book-exchange boxes with their flyers. That is a tactic “long favored by neo-Nazis, Klan groups and other white supremacists,” the ADL said.

Off-campus incidents skyrocketed to 868 in 2018, up from 129 the year before, according to the report. The Patriot Front was the most active in off-campus flyer distributions with 324, with Identity Evropa close behind with 312. Daily Stormer followers were responsible for 34 of the incidents.

And though the Ku Klux Klan is declining in popularity, 11 of its groups were responsible for 97 incidents of flyers being left on doorsteps or driveways across the country — a 20 percent increase from the preceding four-year average of 77 incidents a year. North Carolina-based Loyal White Knights, a Nazified Klan group known for its vitriolic and often anti-Semitic propaganda, was the most active, with 78 of the 97 incidents occurring in 2018, primarily in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

About 5 percent of off-campus distributions were attributed to neo-Nazi groups such as Atomwaffen Division, National Alliance, National Socialist Legion, National Socialist Movement and Vanguard America.

Other hate-spreading techniques included white supremacist banners, which in 2018 were placed in 32 highly visible locations, including highway overpasses. During a 10-month period from May 2017 to March 2018, white supremacist groups used banners an average of seven times a month.

Patriot Front displayed banners 21 times in 2018, and Identity Evropa used them nine times. Most of the banners conveyed an anti-immigrant message, but one notable exception was a banner in Virginia attributed to the Daily Stormer Book Club that is based in that state. It claimed “James Fields did nothing wrong.” Fields was convicted of murdering Heather Heyer when he drove his car into a crowd at a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

Read the full report and see where hate groups are most active.

(For more news like this, find your local Patch here. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here. And like Patch on Facebook!)