White Lives Matter – Atlanta Antifascists

Metro Augusta: Help Identify Neo-Nazi “White Lives Matter” Organizer and Ambulance Driver

A neo-Nazi operating under the alias of “Levi Savage” is currently the head of the White Lives Matter (WLM) network in Georgia. “Levi” is an administrator for WLM’s Georgia announcement channel and discussion group on the Telegram messaging app. “Levi” has traveled our state spreading antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda. According to a February 2022 interview, he works as an ambulance driver. We are spreading our documentation on “Levi” in the hope that community members will be able to identify him, as his neo-Nazi activism not only makes him unfit for emergency medical work but also jeopardizes those around him.

*Images of “Levi Savage”: the first is from Georgia White Lives Matter video assembled by Hunter Forsyth; the other three are from a Goyim Defense League video circulated by “Levi”*

Key facts about “Levi Savage”:

He lived in Utah before moving (or returning) to Georgia.
He has been active in White Lives Matter’s Georgia chapter since at least February.
His earliest activities for WLM centered on the Augusta metropolitan area.
In January 2022, “Levi” identified himself as a member of the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi organization. “Levi” has also distributed propaganda for the Goyim Defense League, a hardcore antisemitic propaganda project.
In a February 18, 2022 interview on a fascist internet show, “Levi” stated: “I work in the Emergency Medical Services, I’m basically an ambulance driver.” He also stated that he had been working at that job for about “six months” but had “been aware of emergency medical services all my life […] it’s been a big background for me.”
Levi is a Onewheel enthusiast and has distributed WLM and Goyim Defense League materials while riding his Onewheel.
Although he has criticized Christianity, “Levi” appears to have past ties and cultural sympathies with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).

Since “Levi’s” early WLM propaganda activity appeared around Evans, Martinez, and Augusta, one potential workplace for him (if he remains in the same job) is Gold Cross EMS, which provides emergency ambulance services for Columbia, Richmond, and Jefferson counties. We encourage readers to pass along our documentation to any contacts working in the Emergency Medical Services field in Georgia. For anyone with potential tips on “Levi,” please send us a message.

Hunter Calin Forsyth: “White Lives Matter” Racist, Accelerationist Neo-Nazi, and Coweta County Firefighter

This article links to archives of unsettling white supremacist content. There is no need to check these materials unless you are verifying Hunter Forsyth’s neo-Nazi activity. If you need to examine them, we suggest reading about vicarious trauma and best practices for open source research beforehand.

Update: Shortly after publication, Administrative Services Director Cathy Farr confirmed Hunter Forsyth’s employment as a Coweta County firefighter. Farr flatly stated that Coweta County Fire Rescue would take no action against their neo-Nazi employee, since his white supremacist activity was not done in uniform.
Update 2, evening of 12/6/2022: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Hunter Forsyth has now been placed on paid leave, while his neo-Nazi activity is investigated.
Update 3, 12/7/2022: Well, that was quick: Coweta County Fire Rescue has fired Hunter Forsyth.

Hunter Calin Forsyth (born June 15, 1995) is a white supremacist who, according to social media posts, has worked for Coweta County Fire Rescue in Georgia since August of 2022. Forsyth was active in the “White Lives Matter” (WLM) network in our state from late 2021 until at least the middle of this year. During this time, Forsyth was an administrator for the Georgia group’s electronic chat; placed propaganda for the group in several parts of our state; traveled to network with other members; and attended at least one out-of-state White Lives Matter rally as a representative for the Georgia chapter.

We have also tied Forsyth to an account on the far-right social networking site Gab, where he celebrated a white supremacist mass shooting in Buffalo, New York earlier this year. On the same site, Forsyth circulated a propaganda video for a notorious “accelerationist” neo-Nazi group which unambiguously advocates for white supremacist terrorism.

*Forsyth graduates from Coweta County Fire Rescue firefighter/EMT academy, August 2022*

Gallery of Neo-Nazi Attempted Harassment of LGBTQ+ Event, Maryville, Tennessee, November 25, 2022

On November 25th, 2022, Tennessee anti-fascists received advance warning from a local community member in Maryville, Tennessee that neo-Nazis were threatening to attack patrons at their charity LGBTQ+ event. This community member put out the request for aid. Many answered the call, both locals and neighbors, and armed community defense protected the event. The neo-Nazis failed definitively in their objective. We are hosting these photos as a service to Tennessee anti-fascists. We encourage other individuals and organizations to share and repost these images widely and freely to identify all neo-Nazis present. A text write-up of the event by an attending anti-fascist can be found at ItsGoingDown.org.

Sean Kauffmann of the white supremacist “Tennessee Active Club”

Meet the Georgia Proud Boys

Summary

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.*

Meet Tyler Goggins, Also Known as Patriot Front Member “Andrew AL” of Bessemer, Alabama

Christian Tyler Goggins (born 1993) of Bessemer, Alabama is a member of Patriot Front (PF), a white supremacist and fascist organization whose members just keep getting exposed. Goggins goes by the alias “Andrew AL” within the racist group. A trove of PF internal communications that was leaked online in January 2022 clearly identifies Goggins as “Andrew AL”. Goggins participated in PF’s masked national rally in Washington, DC on December 4, 2021 alongside other Alabama members. He also joined PF members in placing propaganda for the organization in Birmingham, Alabama the weekend before that demonstration. Goggins’ online trails connect him to other white supremacist circles such as the neo-Nazi bonehead music scene.

Dustin Barnes and Juliette Fretté: Anti-Vax, Pro-Hitler Couple in Blairsville, Georgia Includes “White Lives Matter” Organizer

Dustin Lee Barnes and Juliette Rose Barnes (née Fretté) purchased a homestead in Blairsville, Georgia this year after moving across the country from Washington state. Dustin Lee Barnes is a neo-Nazi and Army Rangers veteran who leads the “White Lives Matter” (WLM) network in Georgia. He has placed WLM propaganda around Blairsville, forcing park employees to regularly clean up his racist stickers at Meeks Park. His wife, Juliette Rose Barnes (née Fretté), is a former feminist and Playboy model who now operates a far-Right conspiracy theory website. Before their relocation to north Georgia, the couple were active against Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 health measures in Washington last year.

White Nationalist “Ravensblood Kindred” Features Haralson County Jailer and Active Duty National Guardsman

Update 5/21/2019: Approximately two weeks ago, Trent East was allowed to quit his job as a jailer in Haralson County, to avoid being fired.

See our 5/7/2019 article for more info on Trent East and neo-Nazism.

Update 4/20/2019: On April 18, the Haralson County Sheriff’s Department backtracked on its earlier support and clearing of racist Trent East and have re-started an investigation. The Alabama National Guard is also investigating East, while Georgia National Guard is investigating Dalton Woodward.

Update 4/17/2019: Haralson County Sheriff Eddie Mixon is defending his white nationalist employee Trent East. Read our statement here.

Introduction

A small whites-only, heathen “kindred” includes a jailer with the Haralson County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia, as well as an active-duty member of the Army National Guard currently stationed in Afghanistan. The “Ravensblood Kindred” is affiliated with the Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA), a Germanic neopagan/“heathen” organization which refuses membership to people of color but embraces the far-Right and organized racists. By “heathen,” we mean worshippers of the pre-Christian gods of Germanic Europe. Many heathens are anti-racist. However, the AFA states that its gods are for white people only. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s anti-extremist Intelligence Project lists the AFA as a “hate group” due to the AFA’s insistence on racial purity and its unapologetic ties to white nationalism.

The small Ravensblood Kindred – it began with three members – is even more clearly political than other AFA groups. Ravensblood Kindred describes itself as having an “alt-right agenda”, supported white power leader Richard Spencer when he gave a talk at Auburn University in 2017, and circulates “white genocide” and anti-immigrant propaganda. Ravensblood leaders Brandon Trent East – a jailer in Haralson County, Georgia – and Dalton Russell Woodward – currently in Afghanistan with the Army National Guard – are both also connected to the Wotan Network, an explicitly white nationalist project which operates parallel to the AFA. East and Woodward’s social media accounts reveal that both are deeply immersed in white power and neo-fascist circles.

*Dalton Woodward and Trent East leave speech by white nationalist leader Richard Spencer at Auburn University, April 2017.*

April 21: Nazi Rally in Newnan, Georgia Resisted by Anti-Racists, Assisted by Militarized Police

Introduction

On April 21, 2018, the National Socialist Movement (NSM) held a small rally at the Greenville Street Park in Newnan, Georgia, 45 minutes southwest of Atlanta. The NSM’s application to use the Park — accepted by the City of Newnan for $50 — stated that the Nazi organization would bring fifty to a hundred participants for its white power rally. This was expected to be one of the largest displays of open white supremacists since the bloody “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last year. In the end, the NSM attracted approximately half its minimum projected attendance and was protested by several hundred. To create conditions for the NSM event to take place, the entire City of Newnan was militarized, with approximately 700 police from various agencies swamping the City, mobilizing a large number of military surplus vehicles, then brutalizing and arresting anti-racist protesters. We are proud of the anti-racist protesters in Newnan on Saturday. Both “antifa” and other anti-racists continued to protest even as police pointed guns at them for no apparent reason, and repeatedly charged into the #NoNaziNewnan anti-racist assembly to violently arrest demonstrators. Further, the large organized presence from the Black community in Coweta County — visible directly across the street from the Nazi rally — was inspiring. The NSM event flopped. Anti-racists and anti-fascists have much to be pleased with from the 21st, despite the fresh instances of repression which we must now address. State displays of force such as we witnessed in Newnan seem increasingly likely as anti-fascists move forward in the South. The same is probably true throughout the US. In our conclusion, we will briefly discuss ramifications of this changed strategic situation.

Continue reading “April 21: Nazi Rally in Newnan, Georgia Resisted by Anti-Racists, Assisted by Militarized Police”

Racists Menace Tennessee Church Reeling from Mass Shooting

An earlier version of this article gave Justin Lamar Burger’s name as “Justin William Burger.” We apologize for this error.

Update 11/08/17: The fifth and final participant in the Burnette Chapel protest (who gave the name of “Leah” to media) has been identified as Florida resident Haley Olivia Copeland.

Justin Burger (Douglasville, Georgia), Ian Booton (Gibson, GA) and University of Central Florida Student Simon Michael Dickerman in Far-Right Flash Protest at Burnette Chapel

On Sunday, October 29, white nationalists held a five-person flash protest outside the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tennessee (about twenty minutes from Nashville.) A month earlier, gunman Emanuel Kidega Samson targeted Burnette Chapel, killing one congregation member and wounding seven more. A note left in the shooter’s car allegedly mentioned Dylann Roof, the white supremacist responsible for 2015 massacre at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. White nationalists have now seized on the Burnette Chapel shooting for propaganda purposes, for a couple of reasons. First, the mention of Dylann Roof in the note left in Samson’s vehicle could be used to build a “revenge” narrative around the Antioch shooting — a narrative which is helpful to white nationalists. Second, Emanuel Samson was born in Sudan but spent most of his life in the United States. Far-Right commentators such as Alabama-based League of the South publicist/“Alt-South” blogger Bradley Dean Griffin have seized upon the Antioch shooting to increase racist and anti-immigrant sentiment. The shooting is also useful to white nationalists because it can be used to draw false equivalencies and to deflect attention from their own movement’s role in radicalizing Charleston murderer Dylann Roof.

shelbyville wlm overpowered — *White nationalists outnumbered in Shelbyville, Tennessee, October 28, 2017*

The Burnette Chapel attack was referenced frequently by the Nationalist Front –- a racist umbrella grouping involving the National Socialist Movement, League of the South, Traditionalist Worker Party, Vanguard America and others –- as it organized for its “White Lives Matter” demonstration in Middle Tennessee on Saturday, October 28. Apart from flash mobs, the “White Lives Matter” rally was the first major street demonstration by white nationalists in the US, since the bloody and disastrous “Unite the Right” rally in Virginia this August. Nationalist Front organizers had initially planned to demonstrate in both Shelbyville and Murfreesboro on Saturday the 28th, but after their forces were outnumbered in Shelbyville, Nationalist Front organizers abruptly canceled their second demonstration in Murfreesboro, where a large counter-protest awaited them. On Saturday night following the dismal Shelbyville rally, members of the racist and fascist Traditionalist Worker Party assaulted an interracial couple at a pub in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Shelbyville TN tradworker shields — *Traditionalist Worker Party shields, Shelbyville October 28*

Throughout the weekend of the “White Lives Matter” rally, rumors swirled that Nationalist Front members would show up in Antioch and hold a protest outside Burnette Chapel. However, no such protest occurred on Friday. On Saturday in Shelbyville, racist organizers announced an evening presence at the Antioch church, but this event was eventually cancelled just as the Murfreesboro demonstration had been earlier. However, the next morning, a handful of militant racists showed up outside Burnette Chapel with a banner, until the arrival of police shooed them away. The flash protest was documented by Newsweek correspondent Michael Hayden. By showing up at a church that had already experienced trauma and violence, the white nationalists made it even plainer that their movement does not care about the Burnette Chapel congregation. The racist movement just hoped to exploit a tragedy for its own agenda.

The five white nationalist protesters outside Burnette Chapel on Sunday stated to Newsweek that they were part of Identity Evropa, a racist organization that focuses on college-aged recruits. However, Identity Evropa leader Elliott Kline (AKA “Eli Mosley”) has denied that the five demonstrators in Antioch were members, claiming instead that they were “trolling” by mentioning Identity Evropa as their organization. Surprisingly, Kline seems to be correct. One of the white power protesters outside Burnette Chapel has been identified by Nebraska antifascists as Daniel Kleve of the Vanguard America, which unlike Identity Evropa is affiliated with the Nationalist Front. Although one of the Antioch, Tennessee protesters (who gave her name as “Leah”) remains unidentified, we have identified the remaining three as Justin Lamar Burger of Douglasville, Georgia; Ian Mathis George Booton of Gibson, Georgia; and University of Central Florida student Simon Michael Dickerman. Similarly to Daniel Kleve of Nebraska, Burger, Booton, and Dickerman traveled from out-of-state to participate in the “White Lives Matter” demonstration.

burger booton — *Justin Burger (L) and Ian Booton (R) outside Burnette Chapel in Antioch, Tennessee, October 29, 2017. Photo courtesy of Michael E Hayden.*

Continue reading “Racists Menace Tennessee Church Reeling from Mass Shooting”

The Problem that Didn’t Go Away: White Nationalist Activity on Georgia State University Campus, November 2015 to December 2016

Introduction

On Sunday, February 19th of this year, anti-racists removed nine white power stickers which had recently been placed around Georgia State University (GSU) campus in Atlanta. With one exception — propaganda for the white nationalist Traditionalist Worker Party being spotted for the first time — it was a typical evening, since removing racist propaganda from GSU as well as Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State University campuses had become almost routine by this stage. Indeed, anti-racists had become so efficient at removing white supremacist materials that many GSU students only noticed anti-racist messages around campus, without realizing that some of these had been placed in direct response to far-Right and racist “white pride” materials.

feb 19 2017 — *White power sticker removed from GSU campus, February 19, 2017*

This article provides context about recent organized bigotry on GSU campus, by discussing its precursors: white nationalist efforts at Georgia State University from late 2015 until the end of last year. Our focus is racist agitation by Patrick Nelson Sharp, who made headlines when he tried to form a White Student Union at GSU when he began there in 2013. Sharp graduated GSU with a bachelor’s degree at the end of 2016. White nationalist activism at GSU during this time was not limited to Patrick Sharp’s efforts, but Sharp was at the center of plenty of it, enough that by telling his individual story we can also tell the larger story of racist campus activism.

We believe it is important to write about Sharp’s activities, even months after Sharp has left Georgia State campus. Although Sharp himself has left, his playbook is in use by racist organizers still a part of the student body. Just as Patrick Sharp’s 2013 White Student Union at GSU (later the “Atlanta Area White Student Union”) first tried to mimic Matthew Heimbach’s White Student Union at Towson University in Maryland, current far-Right racist organizers at Georgia State University may be improvising around themes played earlier by Sharp.

We are skipping Sharp’s 2013 “White Student Union” effort, since this was covered extensively by media outlets and bloggers. We take up the story a couple of years later, when many assumed that Sharp had settled into typical student life, or gone quiet. Continue reading “The Problem that Didn’t Go Away: White Nationalist Activity on Georgia State University Campus, November 2015 to December 2016”