News

Richard Spencer Draws Income From Louisiana Cotton Plantations

Image by YouTube

By Daniella Cheslow March 20, 2017

Richard Spencer, who popularized the term “alt-right” as a label for contemporary white nationalists and is starting a Virginia think tank to promote his ideas, draws part of his income from cotton plantations in Louisiana, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting.

The Center, based in Emeryville, California, found that the Spencer family is absentee landlord for about 5,300 acres in six different farming companies in Louisiana.

The Spencer family also received more than $2 million in U.S. farm subsidy payments from 2008-2015.

Asked on the Reveal podcast whether he uses income from the farms to support his “alt-right” advocacy, Spencer would not specify, but claimed donations had increased to his institute tenfold in the last six months, significantly growing what was a $100,000 budget.

Reveal host Al Letson, who is black, remarked to Spencer that his grandfather built his estate at a time when Jim Crow laws preserved racial discrimination in the South. “I know that my grandfather was on the other side of those transactions,” Letson said.

Spencer told Letson, “I am proud of my grandfather. I am proud of what he built.”

He added that “We’ve all benefited from white privilege,” and “I want my children to have white privilege.”

Spencer grew up in Dallas but his family has deep roots in the south; according to the Center for Investigative reporting, Spencer’s mother Sherry inherited the family land from her late father, and today she is business partners with Spencer and his sister.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO