Image by YouTube

By Josh Nathan-Kazis December 8, 2016

The Anti-Defamation League has identified a group of neo-Nazis and white supremacists who provided security and support for “alt-right” leader Richard Spencer at his talk at Texas A&M earlier this week.

The racist activists dressed up in the clean-cut style for which Spencer is known, blending in to the College Station, Texas crowd. But they couldn’t hide from the ADL.

“These individuals are known white supremacist activists,” said Carla Hill, an investigative researcher at the ADL’s Center on Extremism who identified them. “We are very familiar with the players… We felt in this case it was important to see who showed up this event.”

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Spencer presents himself as an intellectual white supremacist, drawing a distinction between his organization, the National Policy Institute, and traditional neo-Nazi and skinhead groups. Yet his supporters at the Texas A&M event came from those very sorts of organizations, according to the ADL.

Hill identified the white supremacists using YouTube videos of the event, among other sources.

Among those present were members of a Houston-area white supremacist group called the Aryan Renaissance Society, which the ADL says has resembled “both a racist skinhead group and a prison clique.”

Others were affiliated with the so-called “White Lives Matter” movement in Houston, according to Hill.

Hill said that the ADL had seen these same individuals together at protests of an ADL office and an NAACP office in Houston.

Joffre Cross, a Houston-area neo-Nazi, provided security protection for Spencer, according to the ADL. Cross, dressed in a blazer, pulled a microphone from a confrontational questioner during the Q&A session.

Another neo-Nazi, Horace Scott Lacy, also assisted with Spencer’s security. Lacy, a former member of the white supremacist prison gang Aryan Circle, is now a member of the Aryan Renaissance Society, according to the ADL. He wore a collared shirt to the event.

The ADL’s Hill identified four additional known white supremacist activists in the crowd.

“A lot of them are very prominent activists,” she said.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected]

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