Paul L. Townsend, a resident of LaFayette in north Georgia, born in 1964, is an active member of the League of the South (LoS), a white supremacist and Southern secessionist organization. Townsend attended the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia with the LoS contingent that was at the forefront of violence that day. Following the Charlottesville rally – in which one counter-protester was murdered and dozens more injured – Townsend stated that he was “proud that I participated in the Charlottesville rally” which he “knew […] would be epic.”
Townsend set up a profile on the Russian social networking site VKontakte (VK) the month before 2017’s “Unite the Right”. On VK, he is connected to many LoS members and other white supremacists. Townsend posted a photo of his younger self in camouflage fatigues in a desert environment, suggesting that decades ago he was in the US military.
Update: We have received final confirmation that Amanda Sproul currently works at the Carl Vinson VA Medical Center in Dublin, Georgia.
Summary: The Right Voice is a white power podcast operating since mid-2015. It continues the efforts of an earlier white nationalist project, The White Voice. Its hosts also operated a web of racist and far-Right propaganda pages on Facebook, some that had over ten thousand followers and reached far more. The Right Voice host Chris Burnham of Loudoun County, Virginia, is originally from the UK and fancies himself as an anti-leftist secret agent. His co-host, Amanda Sproul of Dublin, Georgia, is a longtime employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs who works at a VA Medical Center.
Introduction
Launched in mid-2015, The Right Voice (TRV) podcast is a white nationalist and antisemitic podcast which has lasted for over 160 episodes. During this run, the show has aimed to broadcast once a week, as the lives of hosts “Chris” and “Marie” allow – which in practice means gaps. Casting itself as a voice of unity in the white nationalist scene, TRV has hosted everyone from Klansmen and explicit neo-Nazis to Alt-Right figures and even a few wannabe intellectuals and mainstreamers. Over the years, TRV has hosted such guests as Alt-Right figurehead Richard Spencer; notorious antisemite and neo-NaziDavid Duke; National Socialist Movement organizer Harry Hughes; and Susan Yarbrough, the widow of Gary Yarbrough, who was a participant in The Silent Brotherhood terror group in the 1980s. Last year, TRV twice hosted north Georgia racist organizer Chester Doles as a guest, the first time before Doles’ September far-Right rally in Dahlonega, and a second time to recap events afterward. The most recent episode of The Right Voice kicks off with “Chris” shouting for “y*ds” to “get in the oven” and addresses the COVID-19 pandemic through a typical white supremacist lens, using the crisis to advance racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories. For example, “Marie” promotes the idea that Jewish people have been hoarding ventilators in New York City.
TRV’s name is a reference to an earlier white nationalist podcast, The White Voice, which both TRV hosts were involved with. The White Voice ran from its first episode in May 2011 to its hundredth episode in April 2015, with its site shuttering soon after. Marie started helping The White Voice in late 2013, while Chris appears to have first contributed in early 2015, just a couple of months before The White Voice project ended. After the end of The White Voice, TRV established its website in June 2015 and had its first podcast the following month.
The White Voice
While TRV recruits for the white nationalist movement, it is not as successful as some competitors. TRV’s main importance is as a forum for scattered white nationalists and as a force for unity, since its hosts avoid divisive issues within the racist scene such as religion. Much of the podcast discussion revolves around tactics and movement-building. Although they have interviewed many, TRV hosts do not present themselves as leaders of the white nationalist movement. Rather, they view themselves as a small functioning part within the broader white power ecosystem. Regular listeners trade messages in a small online chat during live broadcasts, heightening the sense of racist community.
“White Genocide Subliminals” page removed from Facebook
In addition to the podcast, hosts Chris and Marie had previously been involved in creating and maintaining a web of between twelve to twenty propaganda pages on Facebook, which they have repeatedly mentioned on their podcast. According to Chris, at least one of these Facebook pages had nearly thirty thousand followers – a significant propaganda operation. Several other pages allegedly passed the ten thousand mark. While we have not been able to determine all of these Facebook pages, from online comments we know TRV hosts were involved in “White Genocide Subliminals” as well as “Black Privilege”, which argued that Black people are systematically and unfairly advantaged by US society. “Marie” has been permanently banned from Facebook since mid-2017 for her incessant spreading of white power propaganda.
“Chris” and “Marie” are Chris Roland Burnham of Loudoun County, Virginia and Amanda Marie Sproul of Dublin, Georgia respectively. Burnham is originally from Britain but has been living in the United States for decades. Sproul is a longtime employee of the US Department of Veterans Affairs and may continue to work at a VA Medical Center. We discuss each in turn.
In May 2019, the white supremacist and fascist organization Patriot Frontplaced propaganda around Lawrenceville, a suburb of Atlanta. Patriot Front splintered and rebranded from another racist organization, Vanguard America, in the aftermath of the disastrous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, August 2017. We have now seen a few cycles of Patriot Front activity in Georgia. In late 2017 and early 2018, Patriot Front militants targeted several neighborhoods with propaganda, before our organization exposed their main organizer, coincidentally also in Lawrenceville. Patriot Front activity near Atlanta dropped off sharply after our 2018 exposé, so it was a surprise to see Patriot Front stickers appearing in Lawrenceville again the following year. [1]
Old Twitter account for Patriot Front shows propaganda in Lawrenceville, May 2019
While another Patriot Front member may have been involved, we have determined that Christopher Skylar Brooks helped place the white supremacist organization’s materials around Lawrenceville last May. Interestingly, while he assisted the white supremacist Patriot Front, Brooks was also involved with the Proud Boys, a “Western Chauvinist” far-Right group which claims to reject white supremacy and involves some reactionary people of color.
