“White supremacy” groups alive & well in north Jersey

Although some mainstream newspapers have given this matter a bit of coverage, it remains a little-known fact that the white supremacy movement is alive and well in northern New Jersey.

A Village Voice article describes the experience of an undercover reporter who got himself invited in 2007 to attend a “white power” event that was held in Elmwood Park, New Jersey.

. . .white supremacist groups around the country had called for “patriot” get-togethers over the three-day weekend. The one organized for the New York area included a Saturday barbecue and a Sunday visit to “the incomparable Metropolitan Museum of (White) Art.”

Visiting the preeminent art museum, these patriots believed, would be a terrific way to celebrate white culture.

But first, there was the barbecue, which a Voice reporter was now traveling to after contacting local white supremacists through one of the most active neo-Nazi websites on the Internet, Stormfront.org, which has more than 110,000 members. (About 10,000 are in the Northeast.)

Jamie Kelso, who organized the gathering, told the reporter he, “. . . hopes to convince others that white nationalism is a respectable political program,” adding that, “rising anti-immigrant sentiment has helped his cause.” A man called, Copperhead, introducing himself as Kelso’s right hand man, picked the reporter up at a Saddle Brook motel and drove him to the Elmwood Park meeting location. Jump to full article . . .

The supremacy group apparently has long-established roots in Elmwood Park. After receiving press attention in 1996, the group supposedly stopped meeting at an Elmwood Park hall. Peggy O’Crowley reported on 18 September 1996 in The Record newspaper (reprinted here), “The National Alliance, a right-wing organization that advocates the establishment of a, whites-only society . . . had canceled its meeting after an article Saturday in The Record described how several right-wing groups and controversial speakers had been meeting . . . ” at an Elmwood Park hall.

But another report indicates that the group didn’t actively stop meeting there until 2007.

White supremacist groups had been meeting at a local branch of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics since the 1990s. David Duke stopped there during his 1988 presidential campaign. On September 25, 2007, the locks were changed, reported the secretary treasurer of the JOUAM. At this time, he states, “As soon as we found out, we took action”, referring to the revelation that some members of the Junior Order chapter were white power activists. Numerous boxes were recovered that included tapes and books by the police, were soon forwarded to the FBI.

In March of this year, an Indymedia report tells us, “antifascist group scouts on the lookout for white supremacist gatherings in honor of “International White Pride World Wide day” spotted Erick Weigel, “known for trying to attack antifascists at an anti-immigrant rally in Morristown in 2007,” and followed him

to the Allwood Branch Public Library in Clifton. . . . The location was confirmed when League “chairman” Alex Carmichael was spotted through the meeting room window. Alex is an attorney in Northern New Jersey who has been known to refer to himself as “the next Adolf Hitler.

One People’s Project tells the story of how that reunion was visited by anti-fascist protestors

CLIFTON, NJ Mar. 21—A local library was duped into booking a meeting of the white supremacist League of American Patriots (LEAP), a meeting that was almost immediately routed when anti-racist activists (antifa) in effect forced the attendees to leave.

He offers this tip to white supremacists

Here’s a bit of advice for organizers of future neo-Nazi meetings: public libraries are just that, public. If people who don’t like you or what you stand for want to sit in on your meeting, you can’t stop them unless they break a law or something.