Atlanta Antifascists – Page 12 – Tracking and Countering the Far Right since 2016

Jared Huggins: Libertarian Turned Identity Evropa / “American Identity Movement” Racist Activist

Update 2021: We placed posters in the Carver Hills neighborhood of northwest Atlanta, where Huggins now co-owns a house.

Introduction

On Sunday, March 10, racist organization Identity Evropa held its first protest under its new name of “American Identity Movement” at the State Capitol in Nashville, Tennessee. The protest took place after the national conference of Identity Evropa (IE) / American Identity Movement (AmIM), held the Friday and Saturday beforehand at the Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park in Burkesville, Kentucky. (Note: we use the acronym “AmIM” for the “American Identity Movement” out of respect for AIM, the American Indian Movement.)

Patrick Casey, the IE leader, announced the name change to “American Identity Movement” late on the Friday night of the conference. While Casey claims that AmIM is a completely new organization, all evidence supports AmIM being a cosmetic rebrand of IE. The rebrand was necessary since IE’s reputation is so tarnished by its role in the violent “Unite the Right” rally of Charlottesville, VA, 2017, and also by its association with the broader “Alt-Right.” This name change may also be an attempt by IE to evade legal liability, since IE is currently being sued for its role in Unite the Right (UTR). Shortly before IE’s conference, communications on their Discord chat server were leaked to the public by the Unicorn Riot journalism collective.

*AmIM Inaugural Protest, Nashville, TN 3/10/2019*

One participant in IE / AmIM is Metro Atlanta white nationalist Jared Alexander Huggins, who seemingly appeared in the crowd at AmIM’s rally in Nashville. Huggins has been involved with Identity Evropa – and has been on the radar of antifascists – since 2016. We have mentioned Huggins in passing several times, but until now have not profiled his activity in depth.

*Jared Alexander Huggins, 2016. Note the fasces – a symbol of fascism – on Huggins’ patch.*

Posters and Flyers Expose “Director of Activism” for Identity Evropa White Power Organization

On the night of Sunday, March 3, antifascists placed posters in Sandy Springs and downtown Roswell, warning residents about racist organizer Justin Wayne Peek. Peek is the national “Director of Activism” for the Identity Evropa (IE) white power organization. In this role, Peek has organized racist rallies for IE throughout the United States. Peek is also IE’s current Georgia coordinator, managing the group’s activity in our state.

Justin Peek lives in Sandy Springs, metro Atlanta. However late last year Identity Evropa propaganda surfaced in nearby Roswell, ten minutes from Peek’s residence. We therefore believed the Roswell community also deserved a heads-up.

Posters warning about Justin Peek in Sandy Springs (L) and Roswell (R)

The antifascist posters coincide with the publication of a longer exposé about Peek, chronicling Peek’s extensive involvement in both Identity Evropa and the broader Alt-Right. You can read the Justin Peek exposé here.

In addition to placing posters, on Saturday we mailed over 300 flyers to Peek’s neighbors in the Edgewater at Sandy Springs apartment complex. The flyers warned residents that their neighbor is a white power leader, highlighting Peek’s racist statements and his track record in the white nationalist movement.

Flyer about Justin Peek (download .pdf here)

With our outreach posters and flyers, we aim to provide neighbors with information so they can keep each other safe. By repeatedly identifying and exposing the racists of Identity Evropa, we also hope to curtail their ability to organize.

If you have further information on Identity Evropa members or other white nationalists in our region, please get in contact.

Justin Peek: Metro Atlanta Racist is National “Director of Activism” for Identity Evropa

Introduction / Overview

Justin Wayne Peek is the current Georgia coordinator for Identity Evropa (IE), a nationwide racist organization. Peek also serves as IE’s Director of Activism and organizes their protests across the United States, often personally traveling to participate in them.

Justin Wayne Peek speaking at Identity Evropa’s 2018 conference

Justin Peek became involved in the “Alt-Right” and white nationalism in early 2017. After the violence of the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA and the Alt-Right’s subsequent reversal of fortune, IE saw a need to alter its activist strategy. Peek was named as IE’s “activism coordinator” in late 2017 during the leadership of Elliot Kline AKA “Eli Mosley,” but his role only began in earnest under IE’s third and current leader, Patrick Casey. IE now deploys flash protests with just their own members, so that the organization can carefully stage-manage these events and maintain the correct “optics.” By orchestrating IE’s protests of 2018, Peek has played a key role in the organization’s efforts to attract new members and rebrand.

Identity Evropa “die in” at South African embassy, Washington DC, April 2018, organized by Peek.

On his old Twitter account, Peek claimed that “Jew [sic] and arabs are disease to this planet” and that “black lives don’t matter.” Peek also circulated pro-Hitler propaganda. IE remains a white power organization, even if it now uses carefully-crafted language of wanting a “European-American super-majority” instead of publicly demanding a whites-only homeland.

Since “Unite the Right,” Identity Evropa has tried to portray itself as having high moral standards for its members, in contrast to other racist groups. Peek’s personal history gives reason to doubt this. In 2012 Justin Peek was arrested in Fulton County for sexual battery. The initial accusation charged Peek with “intentionally […] touching the genital area” of a woman without her consent. Peek eventually accepted a plea deal for the lower charge of simple battery, which involves intentional “physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature.” Court documents from this case are included as an appendix to our article.

Peek currently lives with his fiancée Amber Michele Wojcik in the Edgewater at Sandy Springs apartment complex. The couple are due to marry this September, with a ceremony scheduled at the River Dream Lodge in Blue Ridge, Georgia. To coincide with the publication of this article, we mailed flyers to residents at Peek’s apartment complex, warning them of the racist organizer in their midst. Continue reading “Justin Peek: Metro Atlanta Racist is National “Director of Activism” for Identity Evropa”

Victory: The Collapse of “Rock Stone Mountain II”

For months, white supremacists promised to rally on February 2^nd – the Saturday before the Super Bowl – at Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta. Despite having hyped their rally since September, their rally completely unraveled in the days leading up to the event. Different “Rock Stone Mountain II” organizers gave different accounts of the collapse. On the 2nd, approximately 150 anti-racists held a celebration march in the community of Stone Mountain, which culminated in burning a Klansman in effigy. Stone Mountain Park – the would-be site of the white supremacist mobilization – was closed for the day, which the Park had abruptly announced the evening before. On Saturday, lines of police in full riot gear waited in formation just behind the closed-off pedestrian gate to the Park.

Anti-racists march in Stone Mountain, February 2nd, 2019

We have covered white supremacist planning for “Rock Stone Mountain II” since October of last year, when we provided not just an overview of the scheduled event, but also profiled twelve people who had signed up as “going” on Facebook. As we stressed from the beginning, “Rock Stone Mountain II” was an explicitly white nationalist rally, whose initial two leaders were neo-Nazi John Michael Estes and the Georgia Grand Dragon for the International Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Greg Calhoun. Both these figures were involved with the first “Rock Stone Mountain” at Stone Mountain Park in April 2016, which was outnumbered almost ten-to-one by counter-protesters and met with fierce resistance.

F.L.O.W.E.R. coalition banner, February 2nd, 2019

If the “Rock Stone Mountain II” organizers were hoping to do better than their 2016 event, it soon became apparent that they faced steep challenges. In early November, the Stone Mountain Memorial Association – which operates Stone Mountain Park – announced that it would not grant a permit for “Rock Stone Mountain II”. (The Park permitted and protected the initial “Rock Stone Mountain” white power rally of April 2016.) In addition, a coalition of anti-racists – operating under the name FrontLine Organization Working to End Racism, or F.L.O.W.E.R. – was organizing mass opposition to the Klan-/neo-Nazi event, vowing to show up and confront the white supremacists on the day. Continue reading “Victory: The Collapse of “Rock Stone Mountain II””

Traveling through Hartsfield-Jackson Airport? Meet Delta Airline’s White Supremacist Agent

Update 2/2/2019: While Delta Airlines has not made any official statement, we have reason to believe white supremacist Jennette Estes is no longer employed by the company.

Update 2/7/2019: Removed photo with erroneous identification (and accompanying text.) We apologize for this error.

Summary: Are you concerned about a white supremacist working as a passenger service agent at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport? If so, contact Delta Airlines plus Hartsfield-Jackson Airport and notify them about Delta employee Jennette Bayly Estes. Jennette Estes supports the most violent wings of the white supremacist movement, for example circulating a petition that characterized a neo-Nazi terrorist as a man of conviction.

Contact Delta Airlines: https://www.delta.com/contactus/commentComplaint

Contact Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport: https://www.atl.com/contact-us/

Jennette Estes and her white supremacist husband John Michael Estes at baseball game last year. Delta SKY360° Club seating may have been an employee perk.

Jennette Bayly Estes: Delta Airlines Employee, Aryan Terrorist Sympathizer

Jennette Bayly Estes, a white supremacist promoting an upcoming Klan and neo-Nazi rally in Georgia, is also an agent for Delta Airlines working at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. She is the wife of “Rock Stone Mountain” main organizer John Michael Estes, who we exposed to his Hapeville, Georgia community last week. Jennette Estes is not a passive supporter of her husband’s efforts. She actively promotes the most violent wings of the white supremacist movement.

On LinkedIn, Jennette Estes lists her job as “passenger service agent” with Delta Airlines. We have further verified Estes’ job for Delta at the Atlanta airport. It is worrying that a white supremacist currently helping with a Klan/neo-Nazi rally could have airport security clearance and perhaps even access to Delta customer information.

Continue reading “Traveling through Hartsfield-Jackson Airport? Meet Delta Airline’s White Supremacist Agent”

Updates on February 2nd “Rock Stone Mountain II” White Supremacist Rally

On the day before the Superbowl, February 2nd, Klansmen and neo-Nazis plan to hold a “Rock Stone Mountain II” rally at Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta. We have written about this white power event extensively since it was announced, providing an overview of the blatantly white supremacist rally, highlighting racists listed as “going” on the Facebook event page, and covering Stone Mountain Park’s denial of a permit for the rally. Stone Mountain Park’s decision has not deterred the “Rock Stone Mountain II” organizers. Here, we provide updates on “Rock Stone Mountain” organizing since the Park issued their decision in early November.

“Rock Stone Mountain” page recruits for League of the South, a violent white power organization

Continue reading “Updates on February 2nd “Rock Stone Mountain II” White Supremacist Rally”

Hapeville, GA: Neo-Nazi “Rock Stone Mountain” Organizer Exposed to Community

On the evening of January 8th, anti-fascists placed posters in Hapeville, Georgia to warn residents of John Michael Estes and Jennette Estes, white supremacists living in their neighborhood. John Michael Estes is a fervent neo-Nazi and the main organizer of the upcoming “Rock Stone Mountain II” rally at Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta, which is scheduled to take place February 2nd.

In addition to placing posters, anti-fascists mailed two hundred flyers to residents, business owners and places of worship in the area, further exposing John Michael Estes and his wife as white supremacist organizers.

Flyer about John Michael Estes and Jennette Bayly Estes (click to download)

John Michael Estes was radicalized by reading materials from the notorious Aryan Nations supremacist group while in prison. Estes organizes closely with Klan leaders and networks with members of the Hammerskin gang, a group that has a thirty-year history of extreme racist violence. Online, Estes has circulated an image that appears to glorify sniper attacks against Jewish people. He is also flagrant about his hatred of Black people.

Estes was one of the main organizers of the initial Rock Stone Mountain Klan/neo-Nazi rally at Stone Mountain Park in April 2016, which met with heavy anti-racist opposition. Estes is currently organizing a follow-up white supremacist rally at Stone Mountain, scheduled for February 2nd, the day before the Superbowl. Despite Stone Mountain Park denying a permit to “Rock Stone Mountain II,” the white supremacists are still vowing to rally at the Park that day. They will be met with a large anti-racist mobilization.

The Hapeville community deserves to know that those organizing for race war live hidden among them. By exposing the Estes household, we hope the community will be better prepared to keep themselves safe. This small action also complements the much broader mobilization against Rock Stone Mountain II.

In a November 2018 broadcast promoting “Rock Stone Mountain II,” John Michael Estes identified himself as an “equipment operator at a scrapyard” and “the boss of my own area.” If you have further information on this workplace, or any other details on John or Jennette Estes, please get in contact.

For all our articles on John Michael Estes’ organizing, see here.

For more information about mobilizations against “Rock Stone Mountain II” on February 2nd, see the FLOWER (FrontLine Organization Working to End Racism) website: flowerunited.org

Get Your Life Back on Track: Ditch White Nationalism

To any fascists, white nationalists, or others on the edges of these movements who read our blog:

This past year has seen “Traditionalist” Matthew Heimbach violently attack his wife and his father-in-law after being caught in an affair. Plenty of lower-profile flameouts and backstabbings filled out the calendar, and some of you — like Douglass Mackey or Erin Willey — had careers destroyed entirely by their own side, with no help from antifascists. You may be realizing that the white nationalist movement fails to live up to its promises and that its leaders can’t manage even the bare minimum when it comes to healthy interpersonal relationships. This is not simply a problem of a few individuals, but a pattern that has been clear for decades.

This is what being a white nationalist does to you.

The movement will take your time and energy for a while, and in return give you a transitory sense of belonging, but eventually it will spit you out in a far worse position than you were before. Think about your life: do you trust those around you to be true friends and support you? Or will they betray your trust, or dox you through their incompetence?

In the spirit of the New Year, we invite you to step away from white nationalism. You don’t have to keep doing this to yourself. People leave white nationalism all the time. Although the first step might not be easy, many report that the journey away from hate is rewarding and deeply fulfilling. We strongly encourage you to get in contact with a group such as Free Radicals to talk to former white nationalists and discuss how to get your life back on track. To be clear, we have no direct relationship with Free Radicals, we just know they do good work.

We don’t go after people for their pasts. If it’s clear that you’ve left white nationalism behind, we’ll leave you alone. Just send us an email with an account of your time in the movement as a token of good faith/sincerity (what you’ve done, with what organizations, etc.), be ready to answer some follow-up questions, and make clear in your actions going forward that you’ve left white nationalism behind. That’s all. We can’t speak for anyone else you may have harmed, but we don’t get in the way of people trying to do better by themselves and others.

Let 2019 be a better year. Reach out for support, and if you’re in our region, shoot us a message to let us know about your decision.

Exposing Joshua Bates (AKA “Brandon Hitt”), Georgia Participant in “The Base”

Update 12/10/2018: Since the publication of this article, Joshua Bates has made a series of public statements renouncing the white supremacist movement and his past. We hope Bates’ statements are sincere. Only time will tell.

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A network of anti-fascist activists from coast to coast have obtained the chat logs of a neo-Nazi organization calling itself “The Base.” Anti-fascists infiltrated the Base in order to investigate and identify its members and disseminate this information to the public.

In an ongoing series of articles, the coordinating anti-fascist network will publish revealing information about this group and profile its members. You can follow all these articles by following the hashtag #DeBasedDoxx.

Anti-fascism is fundamentally a localized movement of working-class peoples. We are not paid for our work and we take great risks every day: not for fame or money, but to protect our communities.

Email the network at [email protected] with your tips or inquiries.

As part of an ongoing anti-fascist research series on a neo-Nazi paramilitary group called “The Base”, we are exposing The Base member “Brandon Hitt” as Joshua Brandon Bates of Grovetown, Columbia County, Georgia. Joshua Bates’ involvement in The Base is notable because Bates is a well-connected participant in the Alt-Right, especially through his work as a web developer and his writing under the alias “Jossur Surtrson”. Bates was active in The Base’s online chats from late September until his sudden disappearance from the server in mid-November.

About The Base

The Base is a white supremacist networking platform which aims to prepare for and accelerate the balkanization of the United States, and to carve out whites-only states under such a scenario. The Base’s platform offers members several manuals about weapons and planning terrorist attacks. As discussed in an earlier article in this series, members of The Base “operate in regional cells of 3-7 people which include current and former military personnel, eco-fascists, preppers, and youth under the age of 18 who have been drawn into the online communities of Nazism.” While it is not clear whether the reference is deliberate, it should be pointed out that “Al Qaeda” translates to “The Base” in English. Continue reading “Exposing Joshua Bates (AKA “Brandon Hitt”), Georgia Participant in “The Base””

Permit Denied to White Supremacist “Rock Stone Mountain II” Rally

Citing safety concerns and potential disruption to services at their Park, the Stone Mountain Memorial Association has denied a permit to the “Rock Stone Mountain II” white power rally advertised for February 2, 2019. However, at the time of writing Rock Stone Mountain organizers have not publicly canceled their event. Since it is possible that the event’s Klan and white supremacist organizers may try to proceed without a permit or make other plans for the day, we are still asking all anti-racists and community allies to be ready to respond on February 2.

This image was posted to the Rock Stone Mountain Facebook page on November 11 after Stone Mountain Park denied the permit application for their rally, suggesting that organizers may still be making plans.

In denying the permit for February 2, 2019, the Memorial Association cited anti-racist protest at the park during the initial “Rock Stone Mountain” of April 2016. Continue reading “Permit Denied to White Supremacist “Rock Stone Mountain II” Rally”