The Aryan Freedom Network (AFN) is a neo-Nazi group that claims to operate within 26 US states, according to the chapter listings on its website. AFN is currently advertising its national “Aryan Fest” gathering—a major get-together for AFN and its white supremacist allies—for Saturday, October 26th at an undisclosed location in Georgia. While AFN also advertised an “Aryan Fest” in Georgia last year, that year’s event was eventually rescheduled and relocated to Texas. However, the 2024 event appears likely to take place as announced in our state.
Update: in a statement on December 21, American Patriots USA leader Chester Doles claimed that he expelled Dickenson from the organization.
Robert Timothy Dickenson is the chaplain of north Georgia’s American Patriots USA (APUSA), an organization founded by white supremacists in 2019. Led by Chester Doles, APUSA has tried to build broader alliances on the far-Right. Dickenson attended APUSA’s founding meeting on December 14, 2019 and has remained a key participant at least up to its last major event, a “Back the Blue” fundraiser this September in Dahlonega.
Tim Dickenson (3rd from left) in Dahlonega, Georgia, September 12, 2020. Also pictured (L-R): Chester Doles, Michael Boggus, Jim Higginbotham (of “Justice Mulisha”).
In an earlier article, we highlighted that Dickenson was a member of the Original Knight Riders, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan circa 2015. We noted that last year Dickenson accompanied an American Patriots USA float in Dahlonega’s Gold Rush Days parade while wearing a sweatshirt for a different Klan group, the International Keystone Knights of the KKK.
Here, we provide further documentation on APUSA’s chaplain. We have documented that APUSA’s overall leader, Chester Doles, participated in 2017’s violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia with a contingent of Hammerskin Nation gang members. Robert Tim Dickenson also took part in the bloody Virginia rally, marching alongside and later posing for photos with the League of the South, a white supremacist and Southern secessionist organization. Earlier in 2017, Dickenson was photographed at a rally by the Nationalist Front – a now-defunct coalition of white power groups – in Pikeville, Kentucky. Dickenson attended the April 2017 Kentucky event as a member of the Original Knight Riders, showing that his membership in that Klan group continued beyond 2015.
Dickenson with League of the South members after “Unite the Right”, 2017, posing with anti-racist banner that was grabbed during clash. Dickenson is on right holding rifle.
Our original article also discussed a racist church which we provisionally linked to Dickenson. A 2018 business filing in South Carolina confirms this earlier analysis.
Update 7/19/2020: The III% Security Force, an Islamophobic far-Right militia headed by Chris Hill, yesterday reversed its earlier position and stated it will rally at Stone Mountain on August 15th.
On August 15, 2020, far-Right demonstrators will rally at Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta. The August 15 rally, held at the birthplace of the modern Ku Klux Klan, is being promoted and partially organized by figures tied to neo-Nazism and the white supremacist movement. Although some organizers claim to represent “Heritage Not Hate”, a closer look at who is mobilizing shows that August 15 will bring an influx of racists to the surrounding community.
Chester Doles heads Ku Klux Klan demonstration in Maryland, 1992
Update 3/27/2020: We have now identified the International Keystone Knights of the KKK supporter discussed in this article as Robert Timothy Dickenson.
Introduction
Since late last year, longtime white supremacist Chester Doles has attempted to build an organization – American Patriots USA (APUSA) – in north Georgia. Doles held a far-Right “Patriots” rally in Dahlonega, Georgia in September 2019 that was greatly outnumbered by counter-protesters, and started APUSA shortly afterwards. Although Doles’ September rally was not the success he’d hoped for, Doles has held regular meetings for his new organization since December.
Recently, APUSA seized on “2nd
Amendment Sanctuary” proposals as their main organizing issue. As this article
discusses, APUSA is dominated by active Klansmen as well as neo-Nazis, and is
an attempt by ideological white supremacists to broaden their base of support
in North Georgia and gain conservative electoral credibility. Our update will
also discuss a newly identified business manager supporting APUSA; local
militiamen doing security for the organization; a planned APUSA candidate for
Sheriff in White County who became a community laughing stock; and finally, a
new business linked to the APUSA front group. We hope this information is
useful for North Georgia locals challenging Doles’ organizing.
Late November 2019: Doles shares propaganda for the National Alliance, the neo-Nazi organization whose Georgia chapter he led prior to his 2003 arrest on federal firearm charges.
Update: Kenny Schneck, a Georgia neo-Nazi mentioned in this article, died in late April 2020.
On October 4-5, 2019, the International Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKKKKK) held a two-day event on private property in Morgan County, Georgia (approximately half an hour south of Athens, GA). According to the Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy quoted by local media, a Friday KKK meeting was attended by approximately ten people. A related social event the next day attracted approximately thirty. The event also included a cross lighting, although electric lights rather than fire were used due to a law against burning after dark. An International Keystone Knights banner was displayed outside the property. Approximately sixty federal, state and local cops patrolled the area while the racist gathering took place, essentially giving the KKK free security at public expense.
The local Morgan County Citizen discussed the Klan gathering as happening at a residence “on Aqua Lane” with the nighttime cross lighting being visible “off of Aqua Road”. Although the paper did not print the name of the individual who hosted the Klan event, we can confirm that the event was hosted at John Richard Thompson’s property in Madison. While Madison County property records list his land as being on Aqua Road, Thompson’s property also borders Aqua Lane on the opposite side.
Update 3/27/2020: We have now identified the International Keystone Knights of the KKK supporter discussed in this article as Robert Timothy Dickenson.
Update 12/1/2019: We have also discovered that Doles’ September 14th rally was attended by a convicted child molester, Archie Lee Atwell.
On September 14, white power organizer Chester Doles held an ostensibly pro-Trump “American Patriots” rally in the small city of Dahlonega, north Georgia. Doles’ rally, organized and promoted with other white supremacists, attracted somewhere between three dozen and fifty participants. An anti-racist counter-protest on the other side of the downtown square attracted three times that many.
Anti-racist protest, Dahlonega, 9/14/2019
Over six hundred police from 36 different agencies swamped the area, with multiple cops for every person in the protests. During the rally, Doles blamed “antifa” for driving down numbers for his event.
Mass presence from police and corrections officers, September 14th
A report from the September 14 counter-protest on the IdaVox anti-racist news site provides a good overview of the day. Here, we discuss Dole’s organizing efforts and how they were resisted, beyond just the day of the rally.
Chester Doles’ group – containing several Klansmen and white nationalists – marches in on 9/14
Update 2/14/2020: This article discusses a nighttime photo of people giving Klan salutes, that was posted online in 2018. One of the individuals in the photo was unidentified when we first published our article. He is Douglas Leroy Savage of Cleveland, Georgia.
Doug Savage, photo posted online 2019
Savage (L) & Robert McDuffie (R), posted by McDuffie in 2014
Introduction
On September 14, 2019, a “Patriots”/Trump rally took place in Dahlonega, Georgia. The main organizer for the rally was Chester Doles, a neo-Nazi and self-described “fourth-generation Klansman”. Although organizers claimed their rally was not white supremacist, and the speaker lineup even included Black conservative commentator Lucretia Hughes in addition to white nationalistspeakers, one of the main organized groups at the rally was from a North Georgia-based Ku Klux Klan faction, the SCKKKK. Here, we identify several members or supporters of this Klan group, discuss their role in the September 14 Dahlonega rally, and provide some background on their organization.
Dahlonega
On the day of Doles’ rally, a group of approximately twenty people marched with Doles into their designated rally area. Doles’ supporters had initially met up in a nearby parking lot. A picture from this lot shows that two KKK members, Jonathan Keith Miller and Robert C. McDuffie, were among the first to meet up with Doles.
Jonathan Miller and Robert McDuffie meet up with Chester Doles in parking lot before rally. Original image from reporter Doug Richards’ Twitter.
By the time Doles’ group marched in, three others formed a small group with McDuffie and Miller. The five stuck together throughout the event. Two of the others, Robert Craig Korom and Cody Steven Cantrell, are Klan supporters and likely members. We have not identified the fifth member of the group, and therefore cannot establish whether he is a Ku Klux Klan member or merely tagged along with the Klan group for Doles’ rally.
Ku Klux Klan group in Dahlonega, September 14, 2019. Still from News2Share footage.
On Tuesday, September 3rd, we mailed 250 flyers to Dahlonega, north Georgia residents, warning them about “fourth-generation Klansman” and active neo-Nazi Chester James Doles, Jr.
North Georgia residents and Southern anti-racists are organizing against the September 14 far-Right rally. We hope that by warning Doles’ neighbors about his history as a violent Klansman and his continued neo-Nazi activity, we impair Doles’ ability to organize.
Follow our Twitter account for updates on the Dahlonega rally. If you have information on Doles or any of his associates, please get in touch.
Clarification: Travis Condor (mentioned on the flyer) was arrested for a December 2018 racist group assault in Washington state. While hate crime charges are being discussed, the case is under review. It does not appear that charges have been filed yet.
