Notes on Martin Kenneth O’Toole and White Supremacy, Part One

Introduction

Martin Kenneth O’Toole is an attorney in Marietta, Georgia, and the spokesman for the state division of Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) since 2017. Years before his spokesman position, O’Toole commanded Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk SCV Camp #1446 in Smyrna and served as judge advocate general for the Georgia division. 

Since 2011, O’Toole has helped lead the Charles Martel Society (CMS), a secretive but influential racist group which helped to birth the Alt-Right. O’Toole’s close associate, Samuel Glasgow Dickson, has been a CMS director from the start. Since 2015, CMS lists O’Toole as its President and Chairman. O’Toole is also a Holocaust denier with strong historical connections to both neo-Nazis and klansmen. Much of this history has gone undiscussed until the publication of this article.

This is the first installment of a two-part series on O’Toole’s racist and antisemitic organizing. As this documentation indicates, O’Toole has been active in the racist movement for over half a century. We are not attempting a comprehensive biography of O’Toole or full overview of his activities. We highlight some aspects of O’Toole’s racist organizing that have received little public attention; have been forgotten over the decades; or have not been exposed until now. As a public figure who tries to sanitize the Confederacy, the full extent of O’Toole’s racist organizing should be known.

In our first installment, we cover O’Toole’s racist agitation at University of Georgia in the 1970s. We then set out evidence that O’Toole helped produce and distribute neo-Nazi newsletters published by NSDAP/AO, a Hitlerite group. We also discuss O’Toole’s help for Instauration, a racist and antisemitic publication. Finally, we set out O’Toole’s efforts in the Holocaust denial milieu, including hosting Atlanta events for Hitler sympathizer David Irving and operating a Holocaust denial book company with Sam Dickson.

Continue reading “Notes on Martin Kenneth O’Toole and White Supremacy, Part One”

“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”