Reprinted with permission from Anonymous Comrades Collective. Please be aware that this article contains documentation of white supremacist, antisemitic, and neo-Nazi content.
In our last article we exposed neo-Nazis “Jeff Winston” as Benjamin Arvin and “Hiraeth” as his fiancée Mandi Gillespie, headliners of the White Art Collective. This group of white supremacist musicians, graphic artists and writers practice their art for the purpose of spreading white nationalist and fascist rhetoric.
In this report you’ll get to know a visual artist who uses her questionable talents to promote racism and white supremacy with the White Art Collective, as well as provide artwork for other neo-Nazi writers and businesses. She calls herself “J. LaDarc,” but you’ll get to know her by her real name: Jessica LaFlamme, of Marietta, Georgia. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but even a thousand words is not enough to describe the toxicity of this graphic designer’s racism. Let’s begin!
This article is a joint effort by Atlanta Antifascists and Niall of the Nine. We uncover the identity of more than half of the Georgia Proud Boys who rallied this June in downtown Atlanta. We also identify several other recently-active Proud Boys in Georgia. We outline the history of the Proud Boys in our state; document a recent anti-LGBTQ+ campaign by the group in Columbus, Georgia; uncover histories of domestic violence and even rape (content warning for child sexual abuse); discuss possible future activities; and give advice for countering this far right gang.
Members of the Proud Boys in Georgia discussed in this article.
Update 6/3/2022: The far-right anti-vaccine conference is now taking place at the DoubleTree in Roswell, Georgia. Please contact the hotel directly as well as the company that manages it, Hospitality Ventures Management Group, with your concerns.
Update 6/2/2022: Unity North Atlanta has canceled the reservation for Next Steps conference.
Introduction
On Friday and Saturday, June 3-4, “Next Steps,” a major anti-vaccine and COVID-19 denial conference, is scheduled to take place at Unity North Atlanta in Marietta, Georgia. QAnon believer Tiendra “Tia” Severino (née Demian) of Tucker, Georgia organized the conference with support from Timothy John Ray’s “UI Media” network. Tim Ray and at least two other speakers are vocal antisemites. One of these speakers has proclaimed that the “God of the Jews is Satan himself.”
Tiendra Severino of Tucker, Georgia
“UI Media” and the “Next Steps” conference are thoroughly intertwined. The conference will feature a “UI Media Awards” ceremony presented by Tia Severino and Tim Ray. UI Media is the exclusive source for footage of the conference and markets “digital replay[s]” of conference workshops on its website. Conference organizer Tia Severino has hosted her show on UI Media for the past two years. The conference’s “VIP Party” on Saturday night will be held in Canton, Georgia, which happens to be where Tim Ray owns a home.
Timothy John Ray of Canton, Georgia
The “Next Steps” conference features big names from anti-vaccine and COVID-19 denial circles, such as Dr. Christiane Northrup, who played a key role in amplifying coronavirus disinformation in the pandemic’s first year, and COVID/snake venom conspiracy theorist Dr. Bryan Ardis. The conference also reflects the deep antisemitism of Tim Ray and his “UI Media” project. A couple scheduled to speak at the conference’s “VIP Dinner” on Friday argues that a Jewish conspiracy has plotted for centuries to rule the world, currently controls the US government, and aims to enslave all non-Jewish people. Tim Ray finds this theory credible enough to promote the couple and other hardcore antisemites on his UI Media site. In a speech to an anti-mask/anti-vaccine rally in Atlanta last year, Tim Ray made thinly coded references to conspiracy theories of Jewish power, blaming “international Sabbatian cabalists” for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Promotional image for Next Steps conference
As well as spreading medical falsehoods and stirring up hatred against Jewish people, the Next Steps conference has ties to other far-Right organizers in Georgia and nationally. We document these ties throughout this piece. Since the conference aims to not only undermine public health measures but to normalize far-right and antisemitic organizing, we believe it deserves a response. We include action items at the end of this article.
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.
Martin O’Toole
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.
We are unmasking two members of Patriot Front in Georgia: Karter Regan Brown of Marietta and Christian Ian Foshee of Milledgeville. Patriot Front is a white supremacist and fascist organization, formed as a splinter from and rebrand of Vanguard America in the aftermath of 2017’s bloody “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The organization is known for carefully choreographed marches, incessant placement of propaganda, and a nationwide defacement campaign against anti-racist murals, community spaces, and memorials to victims of police murder. All these activities are symbolic acts of intimidation, foreshadowing more literal violence. Patriot Front has tried to hide the identity of its members, but their organization has recently suffered a massive data leak.
Karter Brown at Patriot Front training camp, October 2021
Christian Foshee at Patriot Front training camp, October 2021
Both Brown (“Jackson GA” within Patriot Front) and Foshee (“Jesse GA”) are visible in footage from the organization’s training camp in Tallahassee, Florida, which was held last October. Christian Foshee is also visible in an image of Patriot Front’s drill formations at a Unionville, Virginia camp, just before the racist group held its December 4th national rally in Washington, DC. Karter Brown also attended the December Patriot Front rally in Washington DC, renting a van for Patriot Front members from Georgia to drive to the event.
Mark Bryant of Marietta, Georgia is, at first glance, an average member of his community. He is a parent, active in his church, and a practicing Certified Public Accountant. However, this accountant has for decades been active on the far-Right fringes. Bryant combines his profession with his politics by providing accounting services for white supremacists and white nationalists.
Mark Christian Bryant
Bryant appears as the accountant for the National Policy Institute (NPI) – the white nationalist think tank largely responsible for the birth and promotion of the “Alt-Right” – from NPI’s 2008 tax filings until 2015, the most recent year for which filings are available. (Raw summary data is also available for 2016, but the filing itself with the preparer’s name has not yet been posted.)
Bryant on National Policy Institute tax filings
In addition, from 2007 to 2012 Bryant appeared as the accountant for the secretive Charles Martel Society (CMS), which publishes the racist, pseudo-academic Occidental Quarterly and provided seed money for the NPI. For the lastthreeof those years, Bryant provided various mailing addresses linked to himself as the contact for CMS.
On January 28, 2017, just under fifty white nationalists met for the “Atlanta Forum,” a gathering billed as “a Southern nationalist conference of the Alt-Right.” Atlanta Antifascists organized to confront this gathering; however, on the day the racists got lucky, and we did not verify the meeting-place until the evening.
Earlier in the day, assembled anti-racists held a spirited march through an Atlanta neighborhood which has been repeatedly hit by racist propaganda. (A report from some participants — published before the discovery of the Atlanta Forum venue — may be found here.) Unfortunately, by the time the Atlanta Forum venue was discovered, anti-racist forces were dispersed. Available anti-racists focused on documentation as well as notifying the venue, where Atlanta Forum attendees were still socializing and networking.
Atlanta Forum participants in Lobby of Marietta Hilton, night of January 28th
The Atlanta Forum was held at the Hilton Atlanta / Marietta Hotel & Conference Center in Cobb County, booked under the name “Michael Cushman Discussion Group.” Hotel management later claimed that white power Atlanta Forum attendees had left the premises by the time anti-racists notified the Hotel. This claim is contradicted by eyewitnesses, as well as by brief footage taken in the Hilton’s lobby after the space had been contacted.
Planning for the Atlanta Forum was secretive. As discussed on an episode of “The Daily Shoah” podcast after the event, white nationalists knew that there are “active and organized” antifascists in Atlanta. For this reason, they took countermeasures. Before the event, Atlanta Forum planners released a promotional image providing an early morning “meet up” point at Stone Mountain Park (in DeKalb County, some distance from Marietta). This “meet up” location turned out to be misinformation, a possibility we had noted in our earlier writing. Atlanta Forum organizer “Musonius Rufus” admitted that his event would have been larger, except for its “OpSec” (operations security) needs against antifascists, which made it harder for newcomers to the white power scene to attend.
As expected, Atlanta white nationalist Sam Dickson, as well as regional racist figures such as Michael Cushman and “Musonius Rufus,” all talked at the Atlanta Forum. Other presenters included RG Miller of the Arkansas League of the South, and Alabama resident Bradley Griffin (AKA Hunter Wallace) of the Occidental Dissent website. Matthew Heimbach, Indiana-based leader of the Traditionalist Worker Party, also participated in a panel discussion. Demonstrating their commitment to white nationalist networking, Atlanta Forum participants had a brief exchange of greetings by conference call with the New York Forum, another “Alt-Right”/far-Right event held on the same day.
In related developments, the Atlanta Forum organizers moved their “Rebel Yell” podcast away from TheRightStuff website after the Enoch/Peinovich controversy broke. They rebranded as “Identity Dixie,” launching their new site a week before the Atlanta Forum. As evidenced by “Musonius Rufus” later appearing on Peinovich’s “Daily Shoah” to discuss the Atlanta Forum, ties to TheRightStuff remain.
The Atlanta Forum highlights the presence of an “Alt-South” network which joins racist neo-Confederacy with the “Alt-Right.” Michael Cushman, Brad Griffin, and the hosts of the “Rebel Yell” podcast appear to be key players in this incipient alliance. Locally, Sam Dickson represents the white nationalist old guard, but a network of college-aged Alt-Right racists also exists in and around Atlanta — some of whom attended the Atlanta Forum.
Fortunately, grassroots anti-racist/anti-fascist forces are growing in the South as well. We would have preferred to have found the Atlanta Forum early, but even without this our efforts cut into event attendance. Our organizing against the Atlanta Forum increased our skills and capacity. Atlanta Forum planners are already discussing about how next time, hosting their gathering on state property rather than a private venue may be a safer bet. We’ll see how that goes.
