American Renaissance – Atlanta Antifascists

Ian Michael Elliott: Alabama “Patriot Front” Member, Neo-Nazi, and Combat Instructor

Updates December 6, 2021:

After publication of this article, Triad Martial Arts removed Ian Elliott and stripped him of any rank from the school. The school states that it firmly stands against bigotry.
Concealed Tactical has not made any public statement but quietly removed Elliott’s profile from its instructors page. We will update our story if Concealed Tactical clarifies its stance.
On Saturday, December 4, Patriot Front rallied in Washington, DC. Video footage from the event shows Ian Elliott sticking close by Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau, seemingly serving as his personal security.

Ian Michael Elliott of Harvest, Alabama is a member of the racist and fascist organization Patriot Front, going by the alias of “Norman AL” within the group. Elliott is also highly active in martial arts: he trains at Triad Martial Arts in Huntsville, Alabama and teaches at Concealed Tactical, a Krav Maga school in Madison, Alabama. In the neo-Nazi “Church of Aryanity” Telegram channel, Elliott – using the alias “Varangian” – states that he spends most of his time “traveling, and training, with White Nationalists”. By sharing his martial arts skills with racist associates, Elliott helps white supremacists prepare for violence against their enemies.

*Comment as “Varangian” in the “Church of Aryanity” Telegram channel*

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.

“Right-Wing Gentrification Gangs”: White Nationalists and Atlanta Property Development

Update 10/11/2017 here.

Introduction

Since the early 2000s, Atlanta white nationalist attorney Sam Dickson has been accumulating property in Atlanta, making a profit from gentrification and rising property values in our city. Dickson has built a “multi-million dollar business” from purchasing unpaid tax debts, then using them as leverage to obtain properties at bargain prices. Dickson has focused on property in South Atlanta, often in neighborhoods that are historically Black and working class. Dickson has been accused of “bullying” tactics to gain title.

Dickson’s moneymaking from the Atlanta property market was highlighted in a 2006 article published by the state-friendly, anti-extremist Southern Poverty Law Center. Other white nationalist and far-Right figures — currently or recently involved in the Atlanta property market — have received less attention. This article discusses some of these figures, showing how organized white nationalists gain both politically and economically from gentrification in our city.

Sam Dickson

Georgia attorney Samuel Glasgow Dickson has been a major figure on the racist far-Right since the 1970s. In 1978, Dickson campaigned for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia on a segregationist platform, receiving 11% of the vote. A lawyer since 1972, Dickson was known for representing Klansmen. Dickson participated in organizations such as the World Anti-Communist League (which included war criminals and far-Right terrorists) as well as the Council of Conservative Citizens (which traces back to the segregationist White Citizens’ Councils.) Dickson was active in Holocaust-denial circles – he published “Revisionist” materials and hosted events in Atlanta. Holocaust-denier David Irving spent time at Dickson’s property in Key West, Florida while facing criminal charges in Europe.

In 1994, Dickson gave a talk at the first American Renaissance conference, a suit-and-tie-style white nationalist gathering. Dickson has presented at every American Renaissance conference since then. He is also a regular speaker at the “Alt-Right” gatherings of the National Policy Institute. Predictably, Dickson was a speaker at the “Atlanta Forum” gathering in Marietta, Georgia this January, which brought together racist Southern nationalists and “Alt-Right” white nationalists. When Auburn University in Alabama tried to cancel an appearance by white power leader Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute, Dickson filed a lawsuit so the event could go ahead. Dickson gave a talk when white nationalists assembled in mass in Charlottesville, Virginia on May 13, 2017 – the white nationalists’ evening event was reminiscent of Klan ceremonies. Sam Dickson was again in Charlottesville for the bloody “Unite the Right” far-Right rally on August 12, 2017, where white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. murdered anti-racist Heather Heyer and wounded over a dozen more in a car attack.

dickson charlottesville may 2017 — Sam Dickson holding megaphone at white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, May 13, 2017. “Alt-Right” leaders Richard Spencer, Nathan Damigo and Mike Peinovich (“Mike Enoch”) also visible in photo.

While staying active on the white power scene, Dickson has spent over a decade and a half buying up land around Atlanta, frequently using tax liens he has purchased to encourage property owners to sell low. When areas are redeveloped, Dickson stands to profit. Predictably, other white nationalists and far-Right figures now have their names on Fulton County property records, operating at various degrees of proximity or separation from Dickson himself. Continue reading ““Right-Wing Gentrification Gangs”: White Nationalists and Atlanta Property Development”

Fascist Twitter Personality is Onetime Organizer of Georgia State University “White Student Union”

Introduction

In November 2016, white nationalists gathered in Washington, DC for their movement’s first major US conference following Trump’s election victory. The National Policy Institute (NPI) event attracted “almost 275” participants according to The Washington Post, and would make further headlines once footage surfaced of conference participants giving Nazi salutes after a “Hail Trump” speech. One defender of NPI leader Richard Spencer–whose racist and anti-Semitic speech provoked the salutes–was Twitter personality “Fascist Fitness”/@FashyFit, who wrote with the authority of someone who was there.

npi salute — *Nazi Salutes at the NPI Conference, November 2016*

FashyFit comment on Monday after 2016 NPI Conference

This article exposes Twitter user FashyFit as Patrick Nelson Sharp, one of the attendees of the November 2016 “Become Who We Are” NPI conference in Washington, DC. Patrick Sharp is best known for his attempt, in mid-2013, to form a White Student Union at Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta, where Sharp was starting his bachelor’s degree. We also drew attention to Sharp in our article about the white power propaganda campaign during Fall Semester 2015 at GSU. (Our article noted that Sharp traveled to DC for the NPI conference that year also.)

Continue reading “Fascist Twitter Personality is Onetime Organizer of Georgia State University “White Student Union””

Updates on January 28th White Nationalist “Atlanta Forum”

For months, white nationalists have been organizing the “Atlanta Forum,” a gathering scheduled for Saturday, January 28 which has been advertised as “a Southern nationalist conference of the Alt-Right.” Atlanta Antifascists are still searching for the Atlanta Forum venue, but since our initial post on this event additional information has come to light.

On January 11th, just two days after our initial alert, a flyer for The Atlanta Forum was posted to the Facebook page for The Rebel Yell — a white power podcast on The Right Stuff website, whose hosts are involved in the Atlanta Forum’s organizing and promotion. The flyer provides the names of four speakers (discussed below), an updated time for the event (8AM-4PM instead of 9AM-4PM as previously announced), and finally a “meet up” point in Stone Mountain Park for those wishing to attend.

atlanta-forum-flyer-posted-to-fb-1-12-2017
Atlanta Forum flyer posted to The Rebel Yell page on Jan. 11

Stone Mountain has a long history of white supremacy, and last year Stone Mountain Park saw confrontation between anti-racists and an explicitly “white power” rally that was issued a permit there. While it is possible that the event “meet up” point on the flyer is correct, we are currently evaluating this information. Atlanta Forum organization has generally been kept under wraps — misdirection attempts against potential protesters are possible.

In another development, the “TRS Confederates”/“Rebel Yell” website was revamped on January 15, and the Atlanta Forum “Conference” page mentioned in our initial article disappeared. We do not think that people should leap to any conclusions from this website change, however.

Atlanta Antifascists request that anti-racists in our region keep their schedules open on January 28^th — from early morning onward – and be ready to oppose white supremacist organizing that day. To receive the latest updates on our efforts against the Atlanta Forum, either join the event “Stop the Atlanta Forum,” linked from our Facebook page, or check our Twitter regularly. We urge venues and event spaces to remain on the lookout for suspicious bookings for the 28th.

While we are still verifying some of the information on the Atlanta Forum event flyer, we are confident that the list of conference speakers is accurate. Below is information on these individuals.

Speakers Listed on the “Atlanta Forum” Flyer:

Michael Cushman

Michael Cushman is a Southern nationalist based in South Carolina. He is a former member of the National Alliance — at one time the largest neo-Nazi organization in the US — as well as of the secessionist/white nationalist League of the South, which he left in 2015. Cushman currently operates the “Southern Future” website and prior to this ran the “Southern Nationalist Network” site. He also designed the Southern nationalist “Cushman flag” which is incorporated in the initial logo for the Atlanta Forum (as is the Confederate battle flag and the “Black Sun” far-Right symbol.) Cushman is the author of Our Southern Nation, which has been well-received within the neo-fascist and white power blogosphere.

Sam Dickson

npi5934
Sam Dickson at National Policy Institute gathering November 2016. (Image from Idavox.)

Georgia attorney Sam Dickson has been a major figure in the white nationalist movement for decades. Dickson has for example talked at every conference for the suit-and-tie racists of American Renaissance, and is also a regular speaker at National Policy Institute gatherings. In the past, Dickson has worked for Klansmen as a lawyer, but he really made his money on the Atlanta property market, where he purchased unpaid tax debts and used these as leverage to obtain properties in areas that are gentrifying at bargain prices. (For more on Dickson and the Atlanta property market, see this 2016 article. Dickson also owns property in Key West, Florida.)

Mike Peinovich/“Mike Enoch”

mikep3-e1484384765493
Mike Peinovich AKA “Mike Enoch”

Mike Peinovich, who goes by the name “Mike Enoch” online, runs The Right Stuff website which began in December 2012 and is one of largest online promoters of the white nationalist “Alt-Right.” The Right Stuff circulates far-Right podcasts such as the recently-ended “Fash the Nation” as well as Enoch/Peinovich’s “The Daily Shoah” (the podcast’s name references the Holocaust.) The Right Stuff forums have been an online organizing hub for white nationalists, while The Right Stuff has also encouraged offline activity such as “pool party” racist meetups and poster campaigns.

On January 13, “Mike Enoch” had his identity as Manhattan-based tech worker Peinovich leaked online. While some white supremacists have blamed this “doxing” on antifascists, it appears that this information was initially released by white supremacists as part of a feud about individuals on the Alt-Right who are accused of being soft on Jews. As part of this “doxing,” it was revealed that Peinovich’s wife was Jewish (and had appeared on “The Daily Shoah” show). This has led to scandal and infighting within the Alt-Right. At the time of writing, The Right Stuff forums are down but Peinovich apparently has separated from his wife and intends to continue with his racist, anti-Semitic organizing.

Since the Atlanta Forum flyer was released before Peinovich’s identity was revealed, it is now uncertain whether Peinovich will attend. Whatever the case, the recent disclosures regarding Peinovich and The Right Stuff are sure to cast a shadow over any event linked to that website, such as the Atlanta Forum.

“Musonius Rufus”

“Musonius Rufus” is the alias for a host of “The Rebel Yell,” a podcast by “TRS Confederates” circulated on The Right Stuff. “Musonius” gives his location as Tennessee. He appears — like many of The Right Stuff participants — to have a history on the libertarian Right prior to going full-on “fashy” and white nationalist.

“The Rebel Yell” broadcast which “Rufus” is involved with has its origin in pro-Confederate flag organizing by The Right Stuff soon after the 2015 Charleston massacre — “The Rebel Yell” Facebook page was initially a page for “Battle Flag the 4th” organizing, with the “Rebel Yell” podcast being launched later. “The Atlanta Forum” builds upon a central theme of “The Rebel Yell” podcast: that is, the racism of the “Alt-Right” combined with neo-Confederacy and Southern nationalism.