Omar Ali, a property developer and Kemp appointee, is helping racist leader Sam Dickson to turn a profit on a building in Lakewood Heights, Atlanta. Ali is currently trying to renovate and sublease the 1701 Jonesboro Road building owned by Dickson’s “Sun Rising LLC”, in effect generating funds for Dickson that will enable further white power organizing.
Omar Ali
Ali claims that he develops properties to revitalize the multiracial, working-class neighborhood of Lakewood Heights, and to provide solutions to disrepair and gang violence in the area. However, Ali’s alliance with racist leader Dickson disproves Ali’s claims to have residents’ interests at heart. Dickson is notorious for preying on Black property owners in Atlanta, often acquiring his properties through predatory tactics known as “bullying title.” Sam Dickson’s white nationalist organizing helped set the stage for the Emanuel AME massacre in Charleston, South Carolina as well as the bloody “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Dickson has a long history of promoting hatred and white supremacy in the US, and on the international level, he is aligned with the Russian state which is committing probable war crimes in Ukraine.
Sam Dickson at American Renaissance racist conference, 2021
We urge all Lakewood Heights residents to avoid Omar Ali and Ali’s other business interests in the area, particularly the “Ali at Lakewood” development. We will update this article if Ali backs away from his collaboration with Dickson’s “Sun Rising” company.
Update 6/27/2019: Your Exterior Pros have removed Charles Robertson’s bio from their website. They are telling callers that Robertson is not employed there. If you have further info on Robertson or others mentioned in this piece, please get in touch.
Introduction
On March 8-10, 2019, the racist “Identitarian” organization Identity Evropa (IE) held its annual conference in Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park in Kentucky. Earlier that week, independent journalism collective Unicorn Riot leaked internal communications from IE, exposing their private conversations for public scrutiny. While IE attempts a clean-cut and respectable image, the organization helped make 2017’s violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville possible. The organization’s chat logs make their racist and antisemitic agenda unambiguously clear. On the Friday of IE’s 2019 conference, the organization’s third leader, Patrick Casey, announced that the group was now named the “American Identity Movement” (AmIM), rebranding in an attempt to lose some of the organization’s earlier stigma. On the Sunday, IE/AmIM demonstrated at the State Capitol in Nashville, Tennessee: their first official action under the new name.
American Identity Movement / Identity Evropa protests in Nashville, Tennessee, March 10, 2019
Atlanta Antifascists have been following Identity Evropa in Georgia for years. We have consistently exposed members of this white nationalist group to their neighbors, coworkers, and classmates, both to warn the broader community and to bring some repercussions for building the racist movement. With this article, we are naming five more members of IE in our state. Most – perhaps all – are also part of the “American Identity Movement” rebranded version of the organization. Three live in or near Savannah, Georgia, while the other two are in metro Atlanta.
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.)
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.
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.
Justin Peek: 2012 Fulton County arrest
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.
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.
121 Ridgeland Way NE. (Can you see a subtle algiz rune on the exterior too, or are we trippin’?)
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
Evan Anderson books Pen Park in Charlottesville for a “Marketing Network Group Dinner” — actually a white power rally.
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.)
August Twitter post from “Evan Thomas” about spending time in Washington, DC (picture now deleted.)
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.
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”
