ALERT: Neo-Nazi Organizing “Salute to President Trump” Rally, September 14 in Dahlonega, Georgia

Update 8/21/2019: Bikers for Trump have withdrawn support for the Dalhonega event.

Chester Doles, a longtime neo-Nazi and “fourth-generation” Klansman, is organizing a pro-Trump rally in downtown Dahlonega, Georgia, scheduled to take place on the afternoon of Saturday, September 14. The Dahlonega rally is an attempt by Doles to draw pro-Trump rightists closer to his own neo-Nazi politics, seemingly with some success. The planned rally is also promoted on Stormfront, a white supremacist website which has been linked to almost a hundred murders.

Flyer for Chester Doles’ September 14 rally in Dahlonega, Georgia. Note the caricature Jewish head on the giant spider – classic antisemitic imagery.

Dahlonega is a small city in north Georgia, approximately an hour and a half northeast from Atlanta and home to the University of North Georgia. In 2017, Dahlonega made headlines when a Ku Klux Klan sign was prominently displayed on a building in the downtown area – an attempt by an angry property owner to embarrass the city. Chester Doles – who lives in Dahlonega and has a past as a real Klan leader – was seemingly in on the 2017 stunt.

Chester J. Doles

Doles has a long history in the white supremacist movement. While in Maryland, Doles led a Klan group. After serving prison time for assaulting a Black man (followed by a burglary conviction for which he got probation), Doles moved to Georgia, where he led the Georgia unit of the National Alliance, which was once the foremost neo-Nazi organization in the United States. In 2003, Doles was arrested for being a felon in possession of firearms. Doles eventually pled guilty and was released in 2008. More recently, Doles organized with Crew 38, which is the supporter group of the violent Hammerskin Nation racist gang. Doles gave a speech at the Hammerskin Nations’ 2016 national gathering at a Klan bar outside Atlanta.

Doles (fourth from left, grey shirt) at a Hammerskin meetup circa 2016/17. On left is Travis Condor, currently facing potential hate crime charges for his role in a racist attack last year.
Continue reading “ALERT: Neo-Nazi Organizing “Salute to President Trump” Rally, September 14 in Dahlonega, Georgia”

IDENTIFIED: Five More Members of Identity Evropa / American Identity Movement Racist Group in Georgia

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.  

Continue reading “IDENTIFIED: Five More Members of Identity Evropa / American Identity Movement Racist Group in Georgia”

Justin Peek: Metro Atlanta Racist is National “Director of Activism” for Identity Evropa

Introduction / Overview

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.

Peek currently lives with his fiancée Amber Michele Wojcik in the Edgewater at Sandy Springs apartment complex. The couple are due to marry this September, with a ceremony scheduled at the River Dream Lodge in Blue Ridge, Georgia. To coincide with the publication of this article, we mailed flyers to residents at Peek’s apartment complex, warning them of the racist organizer in their midst. Continue reading “Justin Peek: Metro Atlanta Racist is National “Director of Activism” for Identity Evropa”

Racist Southern Secessionist is Republican Party Precinct Chairman for East Ellijay, Georgia

Dana Kyle Jeffares of Ellijay, Georgia – more commonly known as Kyle Jeffares – is currently listed on the Gilmer County Republican Party website as Precinct Chairman for the nearby city of East Ellijay. Kyle Jeffares is a Southern secessionist and a racist, who is connected to the broader white power movement. Online, Jeffares makes clear his hatred of Black people, Jewish people, Muslims, immigrants and LGBTQ individuals.

Dana Kyle Jeffares

Jeffares’ role with his local Republican Party is fairly low-ranking. However, he presents an excellent example of how white nationalists become active in the GOP at a local level, often taking on roles that few others want.  Continue reading “Racist Southern Secessionist is Republican Party Precinct Chairman for East Ellijay, Georgia”

“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”