Anti-Racist Action

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Anti-Racist Action
FoundersKieran Frazier Knutson[1]
IWW General Defense Committee
Anarchist Black Cross Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice
Support Prisoner Resistance
International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund
WebsiteAnti-RacistAction.org (no longer updated)

Anti-Racist Action (ARA), also known as the Anti-Racist Action Network, is a decentralized network of militant

fascist, or both. Most ARA members have been anarchists,[3] but some have been Trotskyists and Maoists.[2]

The network originated among the hardcore punk skinhead scene in Minnesota among a group known as the Minneapolis Baldies which had been founded in 1987.[1] The network grew and spread throughout North America. The Midwestern United States, particularly Minneapolis, Chicago and Columbus, were the main hotspot for activity, but notable chapters existed in Portland, Los Angeles, Toronto and elsewhere. In the early 1990s, the Anti-Racist Action Network began to organize an annual conference, attended by representatives of the various official chapters, along with prospective members. These events often feature guest speakers and hardcore punk bands. In the late 1990s, the network was affiliated with a short-lived international grouping which called itself the Militant Anti-Fascist Network and consisted of mostly Europe-based groups such as the UK-based Anti-Fascist Action and various German Antifa factions among others.

Politically, the network has always stated that anti-racism and anti-fascism are its main goals, adopting a non-sectarian approach to party affiliation for chapter members, and there is no pre-requisite to adhere to any particular party line outside of the five "Points of Unity."

History

Origins in Minneapolis hardcore punk scene

Mic Crenshaw, depicted in later life. Along with Kieran Knutson and Jason "Gator" Nevilles, he was one of the founding members of ARA from the earliest Minneapolis Baldies days.

Anti-Racist Action originated from the

anti-racist skinheads, were frequently engaged in political violence with rival far-right skinheads in Uptown.[6][7] The Baldies were associated with bands such as Blind Approach, while their rivals from the East Side, the White Knights, were associated with Mass Corruption.[8][9] According to Kieran Knutson, they organized a demonstration with the University of Minnesota Black Law Student Association, including Keith Ellison who later became the Democratic Party's Attorney General of Minnesota.[6]

Chicago skinheads formed their own Anti-Racist Action (ARA) by May 1989. Chicago ARA activists fought with the neo-Nazi skinheads of Chicago Area SkinHeads (CASH).[10] A group called Skinheads of Chicago (SHOC) consisted mostly of black skinheads and adhered to left-wing and black power politics; some of them featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1989, opposing CASH who were guests.[11]

People in the hardcore punk scene became more widely aware of ARA across America due to a nationwide magazine called

Maximum Rock and Roll (MRR), edited by the counter-culture influencer Tim Yohannan who worked at University of California, Berkeley, which started to promote them from 1987 onwards.[12] At a meeting in Minneapolis on January 14, 1989, with 80 or more anti-racist skinheads from Milwaukee, Kansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Ohio, they founded a network called "the Syndicate".[13][7] Other chapters in attendance included the Brew City Skins from Milwaukee, the North Side Crew also in Chicago, as well as groups in Cincinnati (people associated with SHARP), Indianapolis, Lawrence and elsewhere.[14][7][15]

1990s spread beyond the Midwest

From the late 1980s into the 1990s, the network began to grow. One of their main rallying points was in relation to the trials of

Mulugeta Seraw, in 1988, and were subsequently charged, while Metzger himself was sued and ordered to pay extensive financial damages to Seraw's family. Mic Crenshaw and some other Minneapolis ARA members relocated to Portland and founded the Portland ARA chapter there in response.[16] Public attention given to this case caused a growth in networks affiliated with ARA, other new sections sprung up around the issue, including in Los Angeles, where it was also known as People Against Racist Terror.[17][18][19] Some members of Anti-Racist Action in Minneapolis had been affiliated with an anarchist group called the Revolutionary Anarchist Bowling League.[20]

Marty Williams of Chicago ARA stated that, by 1992, the network had expanded beyond its original subcultural base in the skinhead scene to include also students, workers, anarchist punks and older left-wing activists.

Trotskyist and New Left influences (some of whose members had previously been in the Revolutionary Anarchist Bowling League[23][24][25]), with whom they worked closely.[26]

Anti-Racist Action chapters in the Midwest began to organize an annual conference under the banner of the Midwest Anti-Fascist Network, starting on October 15, 1994; the first took place in Columbus, Ohio.[27] These annual conferences had guest speakers at each event. The first featured Signe Waller, the widow of Michael Waller, a Communist Workers' Party member killed during the Greensboro massacre in 1979.[27][28] The following year Chip Berlet was the guest speaker, along with Rita "Bo" Brown of the George Jackson Brigade as well as Waller.[28][nb 1]

The network expanded into

B'nai B'rith Canada, a major Jewish advocacy group.[30] In 1996, B'nai B'rith Canada attempted to secure state funding for Anti-Racist Action through Sam Title, who stated at the time that B'nai B'rith had "worked with them before." Karen Mock, the National Director of B'nai B'rith was pictured at an ARA conference in 1997. After Mock attended the meeting the relationship was subject to the feature in The Ottawa News in 1997, which courted controversy for B'nai B'rith due to ARA's links to violence and "extremism".[30] One of the more notable events involving ARA in Toronto was the trashing of the home of a Heritage Front member on 11 June 1993.[31] According to The Ottawa Times, "as reported by the Canadian Intelligence Service, the ARA has also been linked by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) with the 1995 arson attack on Ernst Zündel's home" (Zündel, of German-birth, was in any case deported from Toronto, Canada that year).[30]

ARA Minneapolis and ARA Toronto attended a conference in London in October 1997 which brought together twenty-two delegates from the emerging international (mostly European) militant anti-fascist movements. There was a significant disagreement between two of the major groups: the Autonome Antifa (M), a German Antifa delegation based in Göttingen, and Anti-Fascist Action from Britain (who had partly inspired the creation of ARA in the first place).[32] The British-delegation were mostly working-class and argued for a class basis for anti-fascist struggle as well as for physical force against those it defined as fascists, while AA (M), who were more based in the middle-class intelligentsia, argued that the movement should be based primarily on a "feminist and anti-imperialist" analysis and downgrade "squadism".[32] At the end of the conference, nine groups followed Anti-Fascist Action into the Militant Anti-Fascist Network, including the North American Anti-Racist Action branches, as well as the German groups Antifaschistische Aktion Hannover and Aktivisten-Gruppe ROTKÄPPCHEN, as well as a group from Zaragoza.[32] The international itself collapsed in 1999 as Anti-Fascist Action in Britain became essentially defunct.

As part of their wider

Cop Watch, members of ARA were involved in supporting Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook), who was convicted for the 1981 murder of PPD officer Daniel Faulkner.[33] In September 1999 in Baltimore, ARA activists organized a seven-car caravan with a loudspeaker in each, voicing slogans in favour of Mumia Abu-Jamal and handing out leaflets to the general public.[33]

Early 2000s: dawning of the internet era

Daryle Lamont Jenkins, ARA gained an early internet foothold with his "doxxing" website One People's Project.

Two members of ARA from Las Vegas, Daniel Shersty and Lin Newborn, were killed by fascists in 1998.[34] During the 1990s, Anti-Racist Action was engaged in conflict with white supremacist revival groups, as captured in the 2000 documentary film Invisible Revolution: A Youth Subculture of Hate.[35][36]

With the rise of the

doxxing" of alleged far-right group activists; as part of their campaign against these individuals, they posted personal information of them on the website, including their full names, dates and place of birth, home address, their place of work, the names of their close family members/partners and any other contact information such as phone numbers. This was subsequently spread among other websites, forums and blogs associated with whichever ARA branch was local to the alleged far-rightist profiled.[38]

Anti-Racist Action's

World Church of the Creator at a local library; several other white nationalist groups were also in the area, such as the National Alliance and the Aryan Nations.[41]

According to

National Socialist Movement (NSM), who organized a rally to "protest black crime" on October 15, 2005, in Toledo, Ohio. Here they were met by members of Anti-Racist Action and the International Socialist Organization, upon which the 2005 Toledo riot ensued.[49]

Late 2000s and branding as Antifa

The first group in the United States to use the term "Antifa" in its title was the Anti-Racist Action Portland branch, known as Rose City Antifa, which was refounded in 2007, according to Alexander Reid Ross, author of Against the Fascist Creep, from Portland State University.[50][51] This was inspired by the German anarcho-communist autonomists, who engaged in black bloc tactics that year in a mass protest at the 33rd G8 summit (many of the autonomists are associated with Germany's Antifa).[50] Portland Anti-Racist Action blamed neo-Nazis for the 2010 shooting of Luke Querner.[52]

While

Tinley Park, Cook County, Illinois on May 19, 2012, when a group of 18 HARM members and other anti-racists physically attacked members of the Illinois European Heritage Association (which was associated with white supremacists) in a restaurant.[53][54][55][56] Five of the anti-racists involved were arrested and subsequently charged for their part in the attack with felony mob action, aggravated battery and criminal property damage charges and were sentenced to between 3 ½ and 6 years, although all were released by the end of 2014.[54][57][53]

2013 onwards: Torch Network-era

The Torch Network continued the legacy of the ARA Network.

digital age and changing tactics.[59] The Torch Network held the 1st Annual Torch Network Conference in 2014 at Chitown Futbol, Chicago.[53] This was attended by South Side Chicago Anti-Racist Action (the hosts), Philly Antifa, Central Texas Anti-Racist Action, Milwaukee Antifa, Hoosier Anti-Racist Movement (HARM) and Los Angeles People Against Racist Terror.[53] The event was sponsored by the Chicago May First Anarchist Alliance and Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation. There were two speakers at the event: Matthew Nemiroff Lyons and Michael Staudenmaier.[60]

See also

Notes

  1. RASH
    , an anti-racist skinhead organization."

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Duncombe 2011, p. 146
  2. ^ a b c d Bray 2017, p. 71
  3. ^ Mullen 2020, p. 327
  4. ^ "The Lost Boys". City Pages. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on September 21, 2020. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  5. ^ "Roots of the ARA". Southern Poverty Law Center. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on July 5, 2015. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  6. ^ a b Snyder, Matt (February 20, 2008). "Skinheads at Forty". City Pages. Archived from the original on February 28, 2008.
  7. ^ a b c "Midwestern Skinheads Vow to Unite Against Their Racist Counterparts". Desert News. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on November 18, 2017. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  8. ^ Duncombe 2011, p. 147
  9. ^ "Blind Approach". TC Punk. September 10, 2010. Archived from the original on November 15, 2017. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  10. ^ "War of the Skinheads". Chicago Tribune. September 10, 2010. Archived from the original on August 8, 2020. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  11. ^ "Skinheads". Chicago Reader. September 10, 2010. Archived from the original on September 20, 2020. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  12. ^ a b "Anti-Fascism Now". Kate Sharpely Library. September 10, 2010. Archived from the original on September 1, 2020. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  13. ^ "War of the Skinheads". Chicago Tribune. September 10, 2010. Archived from the original on November 15, 2017. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  14. ^ Duncombe 2011, p. 148
  15. ^ Hamm 1993, p. 9
  16. ^ "A man of action: Mic Crenshaw". Street Roots. September 10, 2010. Archived from the original on July 2, 2020. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  17. ^ "About – Fighting fascism, colonialism, and white supremacy". Fighting fascism, colonialism, and white supremacy – Anti-Racist Action-L.A./People Against Racist Terror. Archived from the original on June 3, 2020. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  18. ^ Berger 2006, p. 116
  19. ^ "'Tide' Awash in the Fight on Racism : Activism: Michael Novick's bimonthly newsletter exposes people and attitudes that he feels contribute to an atmosphere of bigotry". Los Angeles Times. May 14, 1992. Archived from the original on June 24, 2020. Retrieved June 22, 2020.
  20. ^ Michael 2003, p. 32
  21. ^ Travis 2012, p. 66
  22. ^ a b Bray 2017, p. 71
  23. ^ "The Political Pre-History of Love & Rage: Anarchist struggle in the 1980s and 1990s" (PDF). AZineLibrary. September 10, 2013. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 13, 2020. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  24. ^ "Love & Rage Splits: The Problem of Anarchist Organization". The Anarchist Library. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on September 22, 2020. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  25. ^ "A history of North American anarchist group Love & Rage". The Anarchist Library. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  26. ^ "Anti-Racism". Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on December 27, 2007.
  27. ^ a b "Anti-Fascists Meet in Ohio". Spunk.org. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on June 3, 2020. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  28. ^ a b Kaplan 2002, p. 336
  29. ^ "Running the Fascists Out of Town: Then and Now". Briar Patch Magazine. September 10, 2018. Archived from the original on September 7, 2020. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  30. ^ a b c Rodriques, Carlos Manuel (October 1997). "B'nai B'rith Linked to 'Extremists'". The Ottawa Times. Ottawa.
  31. ^ Boyle, Theresa (September 9, 1994). "Eight ID'd in trashing of home". The Toronto Sun. Toronto.
  32. ^ a b c Bray 2017, p. 59
  33. ^ a b McAllister 2003, p. 113
  34. ^ "Death in the desert". Orlando Weekly. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on October 2, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  35. ^ "Invisible Revolution: A Youth Subculture of Hate 2000". Educational Media Online Reviews. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on October 1, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  36. ^ Peterson, Beverley (September 10, 2013). "Invisible Revolution". Archived from the original on September 18, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  37. ^ "Reformed skinhead endures agony to remove tattoos". Archived from the original on November 1, 2011. Retrieved November 1, 2011.
  38. ^ Grey Ellis, Emma (March 26, 2017). "Meet Daryle Lamont Jenkins, Insatiable Doxxer of Fascists and Nazis". Wired. Archived from the original on August 3, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  39. ^ "Alumni Interview: Gerry Bello, '97". The Record. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on August 12, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  40. ^ "Students keep eye on police". The Lantern. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  41. ^ a b "York street fighting between neo-Nazis, anti-racists leads to 25 arrests". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on October 18, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  42. ^ "Neo-Nazis, Foes Clash At Israeli Embassy". The Washington Post. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on October 2, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  43. ^ a b "Barricada #18: Fascists, Anti-Fascists And The State by Flint, Roundhouse Collective (NEFAC-Baltimore)". A - I n f o s. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on February 17, 2004. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  44. ^ Bray 2017, p. 72
  45. ^ "US, SHUT DOWN THE NEO-NAZIS IN D.C. AUGUST 24!". A - I n f o s. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on January 27, 2004. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  46. ^ "Support the Baltimore Anti-racist 28". Archived from the original on March 10, 2012.
  47. ^ "Support The Baltimore Anti-Racist 28!". Indybay. Archived from the original on February 16, 2022. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
  48. ^ Bray 2017, p. 74
  49. ^ "Call to Action Against Neo-Nazis in Toledo! : Cleveland IMC (((i)))". Cleveland.indymedia.org. Archived from the original on March 24, 2012. Retrieved May 23, 2012.
  50. ^ a b Ainsworth 2019, p. 156
  51. ^ Doyle 2018, p. 42
  52. ^ "Anti-racist group argues shooting of Portland man was a neo-Nazi attack". The Oregonian. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on September 1, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  53. ^ a b c d e f Bray 2017, p. 113
  54. ^ a b "Five charged in mob attack at Tinley Park restaurant". Chicago Tribune. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on May 22, 2012. Retrieved May 23, 2012.
  55. ^ "Inside the Underground Anti-Racist Movement That Brings the Fight to White Supremacists". Mother Jones. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on October 1, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  56. ^ "A Better Way". Southern Poverty Law Center. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on October 17, 2015. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  57. ^ "5 charged in Tinley Park attack on white supremacists". ABC Chicago. September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on June 25, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020.
  58. ^ "Introducing The Torch Network: An Antifascist Network". Anti-Racist Action. December 16, 2013. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020. Retrieved on 20 March 2018.
  59. ^ "New Anti-Fascist Network Formed – Introducing Torch Antifascist Network". Philly Antifa. December 20, 2013. Archived from the original on August 13, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020. Retrieved on 20 March 2018.
  60. ^ "2014 Torch Conference a Success". Torch Antifa. September 15, 2014. Archived from the original on August 13, 2020. Retrieved September 25, 2020. Retrieved on 20 March 2018.

Bibliography

External links
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