White Supremacists And Skinheads Join Pro-Trump Rally
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Sam Kestenbaum April 4, 2017
About a dozen white supremacists and members of skinheads gangs attended a rally in support of President Trump last month, saying they were there to provide “security” against left-wing demonstrators.
At a small demonstration at the Indiana State House in Indianapolis on March 25, a significant portion of the ralliers were associated with the American Guard, a militant group with white supremacist ties, according to a report from the Anti-Defamation League.
The American Guard formed in Indiana in 2016 and officially went “national” in February 2017 with the stated goals of “voluntary community protection, activism, and service based around the ideals of American Constitutional Nationalism and the preservation of western culture.” The group said it would aim to “encourage Americans of any race, class or faith to participate with us in these beliefs.”
The American Guard grew out of the Indiana chapter of a group called the Soldiers of Odin USA — which is itself an American branch of an anti-immigrant group that originated in Finland in 2015.
The founder of the American Guard is a long-time white supremacist named Brien James, according to the ADL. He was one of the founders of the Vinlanders Social Club, which the ADL calls a “hardcore racist skinhead gang that has had a high association with violence.”
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected]
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
