Transatlantic Racial Protest
White Resistance during the American Civil Rights Movement
The American Nazi Party
Disclaimer: These pictures are all very explicit and show forms of extreme racism.
In opposition to these many examples of black activism and the fight for black rights there has also always been white resistance. White resistance is an umbrella term for white people pushing back in any way possible against black equality. Here are images of one of its notable examples: Nazism. The Nazi ideology made it across the Atlantic into the United States and manifested itself into the American Nazi Party in 1959, founded by George Lincoln Rockwell. This is an extremist form of white resistance, but when looking closely arguments can be found which are used to suppress and delegitimize the black struggle for equality today.
I AM AN AMERICAN NAZI
This 1963 flyer seeks to legitimize participation in the American Nazi Party. It shows three main pillars on which their ideals were based: Christianity, patriotism, and white supremacy. These false invocations of religion and patriotism are emblematic of a larger pattern of self-defense by white supremacy in the United States. The declaration of independence states that all men are created equal, while the first amendment of the constitution seeks to ensure freedom of religion. The view portrayed here by these American Nazi’s, which persists today and seems to link Christianity and patriotism to white supremacy and racist agitation, is not based on the official documents that were signed when the United States was created.
Images © Comic book by the American Nazi Party (John Patler). Here Comes Whiteman! 1965? Reel 7, A40a. The Right Wing Collection of the University of Iowa Libraries 1918-1977. The Roosevelt Institute of American Studies, Middelburg. 26 Nov. 2020.
HERE COMES WHITEMAN
Superheroes have gained mainstream popularity in the past few decades, but not many will be familiar with the American Nazi Party superhero: Whiteman. This comic, published in the official magazine of the American Nazi Party: The Stormtrooper, might be one of the most visceral pieces of racist propaganda the American Nazi Party had to offer. The language in this comic combined with the extremely negatively stereotyped minorities show the comfort this party had in disenfranchising Jewish and black Americans. It reveals white supremacists beliefs that they are of superior intelligence to black people and that they consider themselves heroes for fighting against black equality and integration.
Images © Comic book by the American Nazi Party (John Patler). Here Comes Whiteman! 1965? Reel 7, A40a. The Right Wing Collection of the University of Iowa Libraries 1918-1977. The Roosevelt Institute of American Studies, Middelburg. 26 Nov. 2020.
BLACKS OVERPOWER COPS! WHITES MUST FIGHT!
This lengthy flyer seeks to mobilize “white kin” to fight the battle against “black savages”. It lied about the severity of what were, usually and largely, non-violent protests by black people during a civil rights movement that sought equality. The American Nazi Party was seeking to use fear to mobilize white people to violently address the threat black people supposedly formed. The implication of the flyer is that people of the Nazi party went door-to-door handing out these flyers and would re-visit afterwards to see if people would come out with them or support their movement financially.
Images © Comic book by the American Nazi Party (John Patler). Here Comes Whiteman! 1965? Reel 7, A40a. The Right Wing Collection of the University of Iowa Libraries 1918-1977. The Roosevelt Institute of American Studies, Middelburg. 26 Nov. 2020.
KYLE RITTENHOUSE
Although the American Nazi Party is a relic of the past, the idea of mobilizing white resistance to black equality movements has not. By using similar lies of emboldening the violence that was used in the Black Lives Matter movement, tragedy struck most recently. The 17-year old boy in this picture, Kyle Rittenhouse, felt encouraged to travel to Kenosha on August of 2020, supposedly to protect this city from black violence. He killed two protesters by traveling with a militia that seems to portray similar goals and acts on similar lies as the American Nazi Party, showing that white resistance and racial violence might not be a thing of the past.