Atlanta Antifascists – Page 6 – Tracking and Countering the Far Right since 2016

Georgia III% Martyrs Roll Call

The Georgia III% Martyrs are a fairly new III% militia. Originally formed after a split from Chris Hill’s Georgia III% Security Force, they received major media attention when they acted as armed security for a Kelly Loeffler and Marjorie Taylor Greene campaign event in Ringgold, GA. During the summer their members also conducted armed surveillance of at least one BLM march. Their provocative name, signifying a willingness to die for their right-wing nationalist cause, has raised eyebrows even within the militia world. Like most III% groups, they claim to reject overt white nationalism but embrace racist xenophobia and Islamophobia.

The Georgia III% Martyrs have recently allied themselves with Chester Doles, a white supremacist and neo-Nazi of long standing. Since last year, Doles has pretended to have left the white power movement, although his social media shows that Doles is still highly networked with Klansmen and neo-Nazis, and that he regularly promotes racist websites and themes. There was conflict between the two parties as recently as last year, when the Martyrs ejected Doles from the Marjorie Taylor Greene campaign event in Ringgold, but their differences have been set aside.

We are exposing known members of the Georgia III% Martyrs in order to warn their communities. The members of this militia are volatile and happy to ally with white nationalists.

LEADER

Names: Justin Bowen Thayer, Justin Thayer, Justin “Slayer” Thayer
Born: 1987
Location: Bremen, Georgia
Employment: Starr Services
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thayer7420 (removed)
Known arrests: March 2019 domestic violence arrest (media link), November 2019, DUI (police record), April 2020, DUI: (court case)

MEMBER

Names: Jake Michael Bassett, Jake Cheek, BassettHound
Born: 1994
Location: Carrollton, Georgia
Affiliations: Georgia III% Martyrs
Facebook: account 1 and account 2
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bassetthound1
MeWe: https://mewe.com/i/bassetthound

MEMBER

Name: Jerry Ray Pless
Born: 1982
Location: Dalton, GA
Affiliations: Georgia III% Martyrs
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-pless-a18b83166 (listed as working at Tandus Centiva)
Facebook: account 1 and account 2

Documentation: Sons of Confederate Veterans Membership (circa 2017)

We are releasing a nationwide membership database for the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), an organization for male descendants of Confederate veterans, which peddles “Lost Cause” narratives and fights to preserve racist monuments. Unsurprisingly, the organization provides fertile ground for more explicit white nationalists. It also has political influence. The SCV membership database we are releasing includes one current member of Georgia’s State Senate and several in the Georgia House of Representatives.

*2015 Confederate flag rally at Stone Mountain Park, a month and a half after the Charleston massacre.*

The SCV member database here was initially leaked by other parties, appearing online in early 2020. The original web link with this member database is no longer active. As first leaked on the web, the member database included “Nov2019” as part of its file name. However, a careful analysis of the member records shows that the list dates from late 2016 to early 2018, with 2017 being most likely. One email address appears to reference the year 2017; high-profile members who left SCV in March 2018 are still listed with the email addresses for their official roles. Apart from the date originally on the file name, the member records are consistent with everything we know about SCV.

Several Republican politicians in Georgia are listed in the SCV member database. Current Georgia House of Representatives members Tommy Benton (District 31), Terry England (District 116), Alan Powell (District 32) and Rick Williams (District 145) were listed as “active” SCV members circa 2017. Benton is particularly notorious, having publicly argued in 2016 that the Ku Klux Klan “made a lot of people straighten up.” Georgia House of Representatives member James A. Collins (District 68) also appears in the database but was not listed as an active member. Jeff Mullis, Georgia State Senator for District 53, appears as an “active” member. Mullis was the driving force behind SB 77, a Georgia bill designed to protect Confederate/white supremacist monuments, signed into law in 2019.

The presence of politicians in the SCV has no moderating influence and obvious white nationalists are active in the organization. In Georgia, accountant John C. Hall, Jr. of Dublin is the commander of SCV Capt. Hardy B. Smith camp #104. Hall is an associate of white power leader Sam Dickson and, in 2018, appeared in a closed social media group for the white supremacist/Southern secessionist League of the South. Another major white nationalist in Georgia SCV ranks is Marietta attorney Martin K. O’Toole. According to its most recent (2018) IRS filings, O’Toole is the President and Director of the Charles Martel Society (CMS), a secretive but influential white nationalist organization that helped to birth the Alt-Right. O’Toole is also an old friend of UK Holocaust-denier David Irving. O’Toole has been the Georgia SCV’s official spokesman since 2018. Media outlets such as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution regularly quote O’Toole without noting his white nationalist history and commitments.

*Martin K. O’Toole at white nationalist American Renaissance conference, 2018*

By organizing in the SCV – which disguises its racism behind rhetoric of “heritage” – clear white nationalists can make political connections and gain influence. Nowhere is this clearer than in Georgia, where the state SCV spokesman is a white nationalist, but the organization also counts Republican legislators in its ranks.

We hope that this database is also useful to anti-racist researchers in other states.

As always, please get in touch if you have information on racist organizing in Georgia.

Posters Warn Carver Hills Residents of White Power Militant in Neighborhood

Update: while Jared Huggins remains a co-owner of the Carver Hills house and his vehicle is outside, recently Huggins has been in Denver, Colorado as a Latter-day Saints church missionary. We still encourage Carver Hills neighbors to keep an eye on the house, since this is not the first time that house has been linked to a white nationalist.

On the night of Saturday, March 20th, we placed posters in the Carver Hills neighborhood of northwest Atlanta. These posters warned about Jared Alexander Huggins, a white nationalist militant and associate of racist leader Sam Dickson. Huggins is listed as a co-owner of a McCallie Boulevard home.

Statement on the Atlanta Spa Murders

Crime scene photograph of the Aromatherapy Spa — The site of one of the shootings in Buckhead

Yesterday’s series of deadly shootings in metro Atlanta ended with eight dead and more injured. The killer targeted Asian spas, and six of the victims were Asian women. The mass shootings will have far-reaching effects and cause traumatic aftershocks on a national level.

Today, news is surfacing that the mass shooter may have been a customer at spas he targeted or similar businesses. The Sheriff for Cherokee County – where half of the people were murdered – echoed the murderer’s claim that racism did not motivate his murders of mostly Asian women. A Sheriff’s Office spokesman explained that the murderer was having a “really bad day” and referred to an alleged sexual addiction.

Our group is dedicated to tracking fascist, far-Right, and white supremacist hate. The murderer was not on our organization’s radar. While much remains unknown, there may be relevant distinctions to be made between yesterday’s slaughter and the violence of ideological white supremacists, for example by members of accelerationist neo-Nazi groups. As members of the metro Atlanta community, as feminists and as anti-racists, we wholly reject attempts to depoliticize yesterday’s murders. To act in meaningful solidarity, we must understand that these outrages took place at the meeting point of several structural oppressions.

The murders potentially involve at least four types of hatred. We discuss each in turn and then offer suggestions for countering each type.

Hatred against Asians: in this moment specifically against East and Southeast Asians, which has been whipped up during the last year by conservative and conspiracy theorists during the COVID-19 pandemic. This hatred has been transmitted from the highest political levels down through references to the “China Virus” but was already present in our society, building on more than a century of dehumanization of Asians during times of war. The murderer may or may not have consciously viewed himself as targeting Asian people as Asians, but there is little doubt that growing anti-Asian racism provided a backdrop for his actions. Ideological racists will seize on this moment to further target and heighten the suffering of Asian communities – as is already happening online.
Hatred against immigrants of color: again, whipped up by politicians and media figures. This builds together with anti-Asian racism, as all Asians are assumed to be immigrants. Racists often employ positive stereotypes of Asians to use them as a weapon against other groups, especially Black people. Yet when Asian communities are portrayed as part of an immigrant mass that is an alleged threat to white people, these communities are targeted for racial hatred and violence.
Hatred of women: the misogynist nature of mass shootings mostly targeting women should be clear. Misogyny is also a powerhouse of modern white supremacy. Not only do women-hating movements such as inceldom, “Men’s Rights Activism”, and GamerGate provide pathways for white supremacist radicalization, but mass murders targeting women are often celebrated within white-supremacist culture. Misogyny inflects racism at almost every point. The majority of anti-Asian attacks linked to the COVID-19 pandemic have targeted Asian women.
Hatred of sex workers: This is strongly connected to misogyny and is often shaped by racism. Sex workers are especially targeted because prejudice from the wider society makes them more vulnerable. Sex workers are often blamed for their own victimization and targeted by law enforcement as much as by predators. Whether or not all victims of the spa shootings were sex workers, they are likely to be perceived as such by the public.

Media coverage in the weeks to come will focus heavily on the murderer and his motivations. We would like to encourage people to instead focus on the victims and wider affected communities. Here are our suggestions:

Support grassroots Asian-American community organizations and anti-hate campaigns
Support immigrant organizations, initiatives against ICE, and anti-racist education
Support feminist activism and create interventions in the misogyny recruitment pipeline
Support sex worker peer organizations and fight the dehumanization and criminalization of sex workers.

We also ask our readers to actively fight disinformation, whether from racists, conspiracy theorists, far-Right organizers, or other sources. If you hear someone circulating conspiracy theories, speak out. Report or flag pages spreading disinformation or targeting metro Atlanta communities. If that is not enough, pressure social media companies to act.

We hope to boost fundraisers for the affected victims and their families if these become available. We will relay information on our social media. Keep in mind that some people may become victimized twice, once by the murderer and again by law enforcement. If any immigration cases rise during the investigation, the public needs to loudly demand immunity for the victims.

Here are several local and national organizations to support:

• Red Canary Song (a grassroots collective of Asian & migrant sex workers): redcanarysong.net
• The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF): napawf.org
• Asian-Americans Advancing Justice: advancingjustice-atlanta.org
• The Center for Pan-Asian Community Services: cpacs.org

Martin Christopher Rojas: Professional Racist

Update: Martin Rojas’ steady stream of racist propaganda ended in June 2022, with Rojas’ sudden death in Atlanta.

“I have a vested interest in keeping blacks (and any other hostile people unlike myself) out of power, for myself and my posterity.”
Martin Rojas (as “Nathan Doyle”) explains his campaigning for Brian Kemp in Georgia, 2018

Introduction

The pseudointellectual white nationalists involved with the American Renaissance (AmRen) website often carefully hide their true identities. Even among this set, Martin Christopher Rojas stands out both for his wariness about being identified and his wordiness in support of the cause. Using seven different pen names over eight years, Rojas spread racist propaganda far and wide. Hiding under the pen name of “Chris Roberts”, Rojas has been employed by the influential “race realist” American Renaissance (AmRen) website from July 2016 to October 2017, and again from November 2019 to present. Of the four employees currently listed on the white nationalist site, “Roberts”/Rojas is the only one who has not yet been publicly identified, a situation which this report now remedies.

Rojas is responsible for over three hundred pieces on AmRen, mostly as “Chris Roberts” but also under other pseudonyms. His original writing has been featured on other far-Right, anti-immigrant, and white nationalist websites: Counter-Currents, Occidental Observer, VDare, and over a half dozen others. In total, he has published over five hundred pieces with his seven known pseudonyms. As “Linda Preston” writing for AmRen, Rojas advocated compartmentalizing personal information across different pen names to avoid being identified. Evidently, this strategy has failed. In a companion piece, “Martin Rojas’ Pen Names”, we discuss Rojas’ seven known pen names and how they trace back to him.

At the heart of Rojas’ writing is a commitment to “Identitarian” white nationalism. While Rojas may pose as a sort of intellectual while writing under his pseudonyms, his propaganda serves as a mission statement for violent action. The same narratives promoted by Rojas in his writing for AmRen and other sites have been linked to massacres in Christchurch, New Zealand and El Paso, Texas. The white nationalist movement requires ethnic cleansing to achieve its goals. The career propagandists who spread the movement’s lies are at least as dangerous as its organizers and foot soldiers.

This map tracks Martin Rojas’ networking on the far-Right. It also highlights how a densely connected network of suit-and-tie white nationalists take advantage of well-funded right-wing infrastructure. Connections represent employment, training, membership, speeches/publication, or business dealings.

Here, we discuss Rojas’ background in Minneapolis; the start of his writing; his time in Beltway conservative politics; his travels to Chile and networking with the far-Right there; and his activities in Georgia.

Martin Rojas’ Pen Names

This is a companion piece to “Martin Christopher Rojas: Professional Racist”.

We have identified seven pen names used by Martin Christopher Rojas while writing for various far-Right and racist websites since late 2012: “Gilbert Cavanaugh,” “Chris Roberts,” “Hubert Collins,” “Nathan Doyle”, “Albert Emory”, “Benjamin Villaroel” and “Linda Preston”.

Under these names, Rojas published over five hundred pieces, spread across a dozen white nationalist, anti-immigrant, and far-Right websites. Over 300 of these articles are on American Renaissance, which currently employs Rojas as “Chris Roberts”.

*Websites that have published Martin Rojas’ pseudonymous writing.*

Each of Rojas’ seven pen names can be independently linked to Rojas through biographical information, or they can be traced back to him through one pen name connecting to another. Each pen name is unmistakably part of a broader web of pseudonyms, all operated by the same person.

*2019 “How to Avoid Getting Doxxed” article by “Linda Preston”, one of Rojas’ pen names.*

Rojas has even written about “How Not to Get Doxxed”, or identified by anti-racist researchers, and advocated using different pen names to avoid detection. However, Rojas made arrogant mistakes which ensured that he would be identified.

Our main article gives an overview of Martin Rojas’ activities. Here, we discuss Rojas’ seven pen names in greater detail, and explain how we tied each of the names to him.

What is the United Universal Fellowship of Faith?

Introduction

The United Universal Fellowship of Faith is a front for predatory white nationalists active in the Atlanta property market. We have previously discussed white nationalist involvement in Atlanta real estate and gentrification, but until now had not covered the “Fellowship”.

On December 30, 2019, metro Atlanta racist, Jared Huggins – a member of the now-defunct white nationalist American Identity Movement (AmIM, previously Identity Evropa, IE) – received a vacant lot on Bankhead Highway from the “United Universal Fellowship of Faith” (UUFF). The Fulton County property has been appraised at over $400,000. The deed that transferred the property to Huggins was witnessed by another AmIM/IE militant, Patrick Nelson Sharp, and was notarized by antisemite John Legrand Weatherman, whom we have also discussed previously. The deed for the Bankhead Highway transfer states that Huggins received the property for “one thousand dollars […] and other valuable consideration,” so Huggins may have paid less than market value for the property. Two trustees for UUFF, “A.M. Davies” and “C.J. Harper”, provided signatures authorizing the property transfer. “A.M. Davies” is UK far-Right activist Adrian Michael Davies, a lawyer frequently used by Holocaust-deniers.

United Universal Fellowship of Faith

UUFF has extensive property holdings in Fulton County. In 2016, local alt-paper, Creative Loafing, exposed Adrian Davies’ role as trust administrator for the Beltem Trust, which the paper identified as then owning approximately 20 properties in the Vine City/English Avenue area, as well as other lots throughout the city. A search for The Beltem Trust on Fulton County Board of Assessors site lists roughly the same number of properties (48) as UUFF (47). While some of these records may be outdated, it is clear Adrian Davies’ interests in Atlanta are far from limited to The Beltem Trust. According to the Board of Assessors results, UUFF owns properties in several West Atlanta neighborhoods – for example English Avenue and Westview – as well as elsewhere in the city.

*UUFF properties indicated by yellow dots, according to Fulton County Geographical Information Systems, January 2021. Some of this property info may be outdated.*

The majority of UUFF’s properties were received from Vineyard Property Investments, LLC in July 2012. An earlier version of Vineyard Property Investments, LLC was founded in 2007 by white-nationalist leader and Atlanta attorney Sam Dickson; former SS of America member, Joshua Buckley, who was then a Dickson protégé; Atlanta attorney, John Coleman; and Sam Dickson’s brother, Bonneau Dickson. That LLC dissolved in December 2010. However, in August 2012 – one month after it transferred properties to UUFF – “Vineyard Property Investments, LLC” re-registered with the Secretary of State, this time with only Sam Dickson’s brother, Bonneau Dickson, listed as manager. Bonneau Dickson’s name and California address were featured on the July 2012 document that transferred many properties to UUFF.

A small number of UUFF properties were also received from the Hartford Trust, including the Bankhead Highway plot eventually transferred to white nationalist Jared Huggins. Huggins has previously identified the Hartford Trust as his employer. See this article’s appendix for further information on that Trust, which is connected to longtime racist leader Sam Dickson.

Adrian Michael Davies, one of the two listed trustees for UUFF (and administrator for the Beltem Trust), is a UK barrister whose history in the far-Right traces to the early 1980s, when he was a personal secretary to Holocaust-denier David Irving. During 1983, Davies also shared a flat with neo-fascist Roberto Fiore, who at the time was a fugitive from Italy for his links to the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari terror group. Since then, Davies has been involved in a variety of far-Right groups. Davies is best known for representing David Irving in Irving’s failed appeal of his libel case, after the Holocaust-denier had famously been trounced in the courts.

Appendix: What is the Hartford Trust?

This is an appendix to “What is the United Universal Fellowship of Faith?”

In our 2019 article on Jared Huggins, we noted that Huggins – who recently received property from UUFF – listed his work as “Acquisitions at Hartford Trust”. We connected the Hartford Trust to an address in Key West, Florida used by Sam Dickson.

*2015 Fulton County (Georgia) property transfer from Hartford Trust to United Universal Fellowship of Faith lists “J.F. [Jane Fenwick] Goodwin” as trustee of Hartford Trust.*

Since Huggins’ name has come up yet again, we should clarify what we now know about the Hartford Trust. Fulton County property filings identified Jane Fenwick Goodwin as well as Sam Dickson as trustees of the Hartford Trust, which is an irrevocable trust formed in 2009. Jane Fenwick Goodwin is the daughter of Francis Goodwin II, who founded the Goodwin, Loomis & Britton investment company in Connecticut and was also a founder of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. The trust’s name likely refers to Goodwin’s family home.

New Year, New You: Time to Leave the White Nationalist Movement

The intended reader of this blog post entry is any fascist, white nationalist, or anyone on the edges of these movements:

2021 is here and we at Atlanta Antifascists want to give you some advice: if you want this year to be a better year than 2020 was, then you need to make a permanent break with the fascist movement. The fascist movement is not one you want to be associated with, and the consequences are often life-ruining. Even if you make it to the top of a far-Right group, you are not protected from job loss and your career being destroyed. Your organization can also fall apart leaving you alone to face the consequences.

There are, however, options to leave the white power movement. Contrary to the established mythology around “red-pilling”, people leave all the time, both publicly and privately. There are groups that can help you exit the movement, like the Free Radicals Project. Our group is not associated with the Free Radicals Project, but we see and appreciate their important work. Be aware that merely saying you are no longer a racist or fascist while still organizing and associating with your fascist pals is not acceptable. We will know if you are insincere.

Atlanta Antifascists will not go after you for your past. 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 2021 be a year of turning your life around. Reach out for help leaving the fascist movement if you think you need it. If you’re in our region, send us a message to let us know about your choice. We look forward to hearing from you.

Tell Brannen Law Firm: Stop Enabling Far-Right Threats, Bigotry, and Violence

Update: due to indications that Hill has been fired, we are removing workplace contact information from this post.

Since March 2015, the Brannen Law Firm in Morrow, Georgia has employed far-Right militia leader Christopher Hill as a paralegal. During this time, Hill’s III% Security Force militia led anti-Muslim campaigns, organized alongside white supremacists despite claims of being non-racist, and was linked to a bomb plot in Kansas. A III% Security Force ally committed a brutal attack during 2017’s “Unite the Right” event in Charlottesville, Virginia. Most recently, Hill’s “Georgia Security Force” – our state’s wing of III% SF – assaulted unarmed anti-racist and anti-fascist counter-protesters in Atlanta, with Hill boasting about the gang attack afterward.

December 12, 2020: Chris Hill celebrates gang attack in Atlanta by his followers.

Since Hill is a highly visible public face of the militia movement and frequently makes inflammatory statements to the media, Joseph Chad Brannen’s firm must be aware of his employee’s activities. Chad Brannen nevertheless enables Hill’s far-Right organizing by keeping the militia leader employed. After half a decade of harm to communities, it is time for the Brannen Law Firm to fire Hill.

Contact the Brannen Law Firm and express your concern about how it enables violent far-Right militia organizing. We provide a sample script for calls below. Remember that if concerned about privacy, you can use *67 when calling. After the script, we provide notes on some of the violence and campaigns of intimidation linked to Hill, while he worked at the Brannen Law Firm.

Contact:

Brannen Law Firm
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