Mark Bryant of Marietta, Georgia is, at first glance, an average member of his community. He is a parent, active in his church, and a practicing Certified Public Accountant. However, this accountant has for decades been active on the far-Right fringes. Bryant combines his profession with his politics by providing accounting services for white supremacists and white nationalists.
Bryant appears as the accountant for the National Policy Institute (NPI) – the white nationalist think tank largely responsible for the birth and promotion of the “Alt-Right” – from NPI’s 2008 tax filings until 2015, the most recent year for which filings are available. (Raw summary data is also available for 2016, but the filing itself with the preparer’s name has not yet been posted.)
In addition, from 2007 to 2012 Bryant appeared as the accountant for the secretive Charles Martel Society (CMS), which publishes the racist, pseudo-academic Occidental Quarterly and provided seed money for the NPI. For the last three of those years, Bryant provided various mailing addresses linked to himself as the contact for CMS.
Bryant’s History
Mark Christian Bryant grew up in Dunwoody, Georgia, where he attended Dunwoody High School. According to an arrest record, he was born in Texas. Bryant graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in Accounting in 1993.
Mark Bryant appeared on filings for the Populist Party of Georgia, Inc. a Georgia Domestic Non-Profit Corporation in 1999 and 2000, where Bryant was listed as Chief Financial Officer. According to records with the Georgia Secretary of State, the Populist Party of Georgia was founded in 1993. No records for the years 1994 to 1998 are available online, so it is unclear when Bryant began his involvement. Bryant’s name does not feature on the 1993 filing. The Populist Party of Georgia was administratively dissolved by the Secretary of State in 2002, after no filings were made the year prior.
Of particular note on the Populist Party of Georgia filings is James H. Yarbrough, who appeared as Agent and Secretary in the 1999 and 2000 filings, and also appeared in its founding documents. Yarbrough was heavily involved with the state chapter of the Populist Party. The resurrected Populist Party was active in the late 1980s and early 1990s, serving as a vehicle for some of David Duke’s runs for President. The Georgia chapter also campaigned to keep the Confederate battle flag on the old Georgia state flag. Leonard Zeskind’s Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream, placed Yarbrough at a 1988 meeting for David Duke in the Atlanta suburbs that was also attended by Atlanta-area white power leader Sam Dickson. (1) A 2002 schedule for the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens’ national conference listed Dickson as CofCC’s Georgia director, and Yarbrough as a “Georgia C of CC activist”.
This association between Yarbrough and Dickson is significant, since Mark Bryant went on to help the racist Charles Martel Society – of which Dickson is a key personality – after working with Yarbrough in the Populist Party of Georgia. The connection to the National Policy Institute was likely also made through Dickson or Dickson’s circles. However, relations between Dickson’s circles and Richard Spencer/the NPI have deteriorated following the disastrous “Unite the Right”.
Bryant Today
Bryant provided accountancy services to the National Policy Institute, the white supremacist think tank headed by Richard Spencer, up to its most recent available tax filing (2015), which Bryant submitted in December 2016.
On social media, Bryant keeps in touch with John Weatherman, an Atlanta antisemite active in Sam Dickson’s network. Bryant is also connected to John C. Hall, a Dublin, Georgia, white supremacist who also works as an accountant.
Bryant appears to be a strong supporter of the right-wing Traditionalist Catholic movement. On Facebook, Bryant likes “Defeat Modernism”, a Traditionalist Catholic page featuring antisemitic materials.
Antisemitic propaganda from “Defeat Modernism”, followed by Bryant
Bryant’s wife, Suzanna Price Bryant, died in early March. Suzanna Bryant was also a firm supporter of Traditionalist Catholicism. On social media, she liked the pages for the German Defense League, the Norwegian Defense League, and the European Defense League. All are spin-offs of the parent group, the English Defense League, a far-Right Islamophobic organization.
What should be done?
If you live in or near Marietta, Georgia, please share this article widely so that Mark Bryant’s neighbors can know of his work with far-Right and white nationalist networks.
Please also share this article to anyone who may use Bryant for accountancy work. They should know who they are supporting.
Bryant’s business suite is in the 1755 The Exchange building in Atlanta. If you are concerned about them renting to Bryant, reach out to the rental manager here.
An archived version of Bryant’s business website is available here.
If you have more information regarding Mark Bryant’s work for the far-Right and white nationalists, please get in touch.
Note
(1) From Zeskind’s Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream (p.138):
With the Populist Party still fixated on making [George] Hansen its [presidential] candidate, David Duke went to an Atlanta suburb and announced a campaign for the Democratic Party primaries still seven months away. For the occasion, on June 8, he secured a meeting hall at the Marriott Hotel. Before the event actually started, attorney Sam Dickson strolled by in earnest conversation with Don Black, both dressed handsomely in dark suits. Outside the room’s double-doors two thickset biker Klan goons stood guard […]
After the doors closed, Jim Yarborough arrived. Tall, balding, and bland, Yarborough was from the same generation as Willis Carto and lived in Gainesville, Georgia, just a fifteen-minute jump down the roadway from Forsyth County. Yarborough was then the national vice chairman of the Populist Party, the latest in a series of posts he held whenever Carto controlled the party’s apparatus.