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 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.
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.
Examine ourarticles and the documentation supplied above. Ask yourself whether Dean Morris’ words are consistent with a year and a half of inaction, brushing off community concerns about white power organizing and explicit death threats, even as AJMLS markets itself as welcoming ethnic diversity. The time for AJMLS to act is overdue.
The house, located on a quiet, affluent street in the Peachtree Hills neighborhood of Buckhead, Atlanta, does not stand out. The comings and goings at 121 Ridgeland Way NE may not attract much neighborhood attention. However, this house is a hub for racist organizing not just for Atlanta, but for the South and arguably the country. It is owned by Sam Glasgow Dickson, a key player in the white nationalist movement. From this building, Dickson and his associates try to build the white power movement, especially its middle-class face. They also make moves in the Atlanta property market, both enriching themselves and building resources for their cause.
Within a week from the sign being removed, Evan Anderson sold his building in Lakewood. Sun Rising LLC/Anderson still owns nearby lots in that neighborhood as well as other property in Atlanta.
Evan Anderson and the May 13, 2017 Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia
It is unsurprising that Evan Anderson supplied an Alexandria, Virginia address on this paperwork, since Anderson has posted to social media about spending time near Washington, DC (and has helped with National Policy Institute conferences in DC.)
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.
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.
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”
Core activists of the energized local “Alt-Right” were caught in action at Stone Mountain on September 10 last year. While typically local “Alt-Right” racists meet in secrecy, this time they got recorded. Three of the white nationalists who appeared on Stone Mountain in September are discussed below. All three are Georgia State University students. (Patrick Sharp, one of the leaders of the “Alt-Right” group on the Mountain, was also until recently a GSU student — we have discussed Sharp extensively elsewhere.)
Charles (Chaz) Neugebauer
Charles Neugebauer is a Criminal Justice major at GSU and is the President of the University’s Boxing Club. On Twitter, Chaz Neugebauer uses the handle “Chud”/@chaz_nuke. This account follows local “Alt-Right” profiles plus better-known national ones such as TheRightStuff and Richard Spencer. On this Twitter account, Neugebauer portrays immigration in Europe as an “invading army” and further signals his far-Right worldview in comments such as: “Your ancestors didn’t fight and die for you to chose [sic] their adversaries over your own people.”
One string of Twitter comments complains about being “called a racist” in one of his current classes. We can only guess what led to that.
Chase Carroll
Chase Riggs Carroll is another GSU Criminal Justice student, friend of Chaz Neugebauer, and a participant in the GSU Boxing Club. At the September 2016 “Alt-Right” gathering in Stone Mountain Park, Carroll carried a Confederate Battle Flag. At the time, Carroll’s hair was long, but he has since shifted to a stricter, shorter style.
Witzler’s radicalization towards the Right seems to have occurred last year. On June 15, 2016, Witzler attended a Trump campaign stop at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. Also in June, Witzler started his (now gone) “12thCenturyShitlord”/@USBarbarossa Twitter account, which he used to argue that BlackLivesMatter protests should be “crushed,” that voting rights for women should be repealed, and that “jews run the media, finances, schools, governments, and blame everything on Whites.”
We believe that McKinley Witzler followed his “12thCenturyShitlord” Twitter account with one named “9thCenturyDeplorable”/@USCharlemagne which has recently been reactivated.
On November 13, 2016 — the day after white nationalist posters and stickers were placed on Atlanta-area campuses as part of a coordinated propaganda campaign — USCharlemagne Tweeted “There’s some naughty goyim in Atlanta.” This suggests the user’s approval of and possibly involvement with the white power action, which was coordinated nationally by TheRightStuff and which hit GSU as well as other campuses in Georgia.
The “9thCenturyDeplorable”/USCharlemagne account was relaunched on March 22 of this year. The first post of the reborn account was a Holocaust reference: “Rev up those ovens, I’m back!” The profile currently lists its “dislikes” as “Saracens” — a term for Muslims from the time of the Crusades — as well as “Jews.”
While McKinley Witzler was photographed on Stone Mountain with long hair, Witzler has now adopted the undercut short hairstyle favored by the Alt-Right — perhaps an attempt to fit in with his militant racist pals.
Conclusion
“Alt-Right” racists are slowly moving from internet posting to concrete activity on campuses and in communities. We highlighted three participants in the local “Alt-Right” scene who were filmed at a 2016 white power gathering. At Georgia State, one of them could be your classmate, the security person in your building, or the person instructing how to throw an efficient punch. We believe that white power activists such as Neugebauer, Carroll and Witzler should be taken seriously. Any attempts they may make to organize against people of color, Muslims, Jewish people, sexual minorities, or other targets must be opposed. It is essential that anti-racists build active networks and broader coalitions that are up for the task.
As always, if you have information about white power and fascist organizing in Atlanta, please contact us.
NOTE
[1] Memo from Georgia State University student, in records of Atlanta Antifascists.