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Bryon Widner is an American former white power skinhead.
| The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for biographies .(June 2021) |
Bryon Widner is an American former white power skinhead.
Widner became a skinhead at the age of 14, and he spent 16 years involved with white supremacist organizations in the midwestern United States. [1] Described as a "pit bull", [2] Widner co-founded Vinlanders Social Club, a white power group in Indiana [3] that soon gained a reputation for excessive violence. This organization became one of the fastest-growing racist skinhead organizations in the US. [1]
Widner's efforts to rejoin wider society were significantly hampered by his extensive facial tattoos, many of which were violent or racist. His wife feared that Widner would take drastic action to remove the tattoos, such as immersing his face in acid. She eventually contacted anti-racist activist Daryle Lamont Jenkins of One People's Project who put him in contact with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). [2]
After "several weeks of conversation," SPLC representatives agreed to help Widner in his quest to remove his facial tattoos. They found a plastic surgeon who was willing to perform the procedure, and an anonymous donor provided $35,000 for the procedures. [2]
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white supremacist groups, for its classification of hate groups and other extremist organizations, and for promoting tolerance education programs. The SPLC was founded by Morris Dees, Joseph J. Levin Jr., and Julian Bond in 1971 as a civil rights law firm in Montgomery. Bond served as president of the board between 1971 and 1979.
Black supremacy or black supremacism is a racial supremacist belief which maintains that black people are inherently superior to people of other races.
The Aryan Brotherhood, also known as the Brand or the AB, is a neo-Nazi prison gang and an organized crime syndicate which is based in the United States and has an estimated 15,000–20,000 members both inside and outside prisons. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has characterized it as "the nation's oldest major white supremacist prison gang and a national crime syndicate" while the Anti-Defamation League calls it the "oldest and most notorious racist prison gang in the United States". According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Aryan Brotherhood makes up an extremely low percentage of the entire US prison population but it is responsible for a disproportionately large number of prison murders.
White Aryan Resistance (WAR) was a white supremacist and neo-Nazi organization in the United States which was founded and formerly led by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Tom Metzger. It was based in Warsaw, Indiana, and it was also incorporated as a business. In 1993, the group expanded into Canada in what they dubbed operation Maple leaf.
The Hammerskins are a white supremacist group formed in 1988 in Dallas, Texas. Their primary focus is the production and promotion of white power rock music, and many white power bands have been affiliated with the group. The Hammerskins were affiliated with the record label 9% Productions. The Hammerskins host several annual concerts, including Hammerfest, an annual event in both the United States and Europe in honor of deceased Hammerskin Joe Rowan, the lead singer of the band Nordic Thunder.
Volksfront, also known as Volksfront International, was an American white separatist organization founded on October 20, 1994, in Portland, Oregon. According to Volksfront's now defunct website, the group described itself as an "international fraternal organization for persons of European descent." The logo of Volksfront was the Algiz rune, a common rune used as a neo-Nazi symbol common among other organizations such as National Alliance. Volksfront had approximately 50 members in the United States split between four chapters designated as Pac-West, Central States, North East, and Gulf-Atlantic, and an additional 50 members dispersed in other countries including Germany, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Spain. The goal of the movement was to create an all-White homeland in the Pacific Northwest. The flag of Volksfront was based on the Nazi flag in the colors of black, white, and red with the Volksfront logo and the slogan was "Race Over All" implying that race mattered over everything else. In August 2012, the United States branch of Volksfront announced their dissolution via their website. Citing harassment and investigations by the authorities, the group said it was disbanding.
The Imperial Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKA) is a white supremacist, white nationalist, neo-Nazi paramilitary organization. Until the late 2000s, it was the second largest Klan group in the United States, and the largest at one point in the early 2000s. In 2008, the IKA was reported to have at least 23 chapters in 17 states, most of which were small.
White power skinheads, also known as racist skinheads and neo-Nazi skinheads, and pejoratively known as Boneheads, are members of a neo-Nazi, white supremacist and antisemitic offshoot of the skinhead subculture. Many of them are affiliated with white nationalist organizations and some of them are members of prison gangs. The movement emerged in the United Kingdom between the late 1960s and the late 1970s, before spreading across Europe, Russia and North America in the 1980–1990s.
Fourteen Words is a reference to two slogans originated by David Eden Lane, one of nine founding members of the defunct white separatist insurrectionary terrorist organization The Order. The slogans have served as a rallying cry for militant white nationalists internationally. The primary slogan in the Fourteen Words is "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children", followed by the secondary slogan "Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the Earth".
John Hamilton Tanton was an American ophthalmologist, white nationalist and anti-immigration activist. He was the founder and first chairman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-immigration organization. He was the co-founder of the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration think tank; and NumbersUSA, an anti-immigration lobbying group. He was chairman of U.S. English and ProEnglish. He was briefly President of Zero Population Growth. He was the founder of The Social Contract Press, which published a quarterly journal of nativist and white nationalist writers called The Social Contract until Fall 2019. He founded the pro-eugenics organization Society for Genetic Education.
The Social Contract Press (SCP) is an American publisher of white nationalist and anti-immigrant literature. It is a program of U.S. Inc., a foundation formed by John Tanton, who was called by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) "the racist founder and principal ideologue of the modern nativist movement". Founded in 1990, it publishes the quarterly Social Contract journal, as well as reprints and new works.
One Peoples Project (OPP) is an organisation founded in 2000 to monitor and publish information about alleged racist and far-right groups and individuals, mostly in the United States. The group has about fifteen volunteers in addition to its most prominent members, Daryle Lamont Jenkins, its founder, and Joshua Hoyt, who joined the group in 2002. It has been called "the most mainstream and well-known anti-fascist or antifa" organization in the United States. Its motto is "Hate Has Consequences".
The Nazi Lowriders are a Neo-Nazi, White supremacist organized crime syndicate, and prison and street gang based primarily in metro Los Angeles and several areas around Texas. They also are believed to have spread to other states, having small rural and suburban factions. They are allies of the larger and more notorious gangs, such as the Aryan Brotherhood and the Mexican Mafia, and fellow peckerwood gang Public Enemy No. 1. Their main rivals are the Bloods, the Crips, the Black Guerrilla Family, MS-13, Norteños, and Nuestra Familia. The Nazi Lowriders operate both in and outside of prison. Methamphetamine abuse is common among members of the group. The NLR's acts of violence have even seen victims from the general public, including police officers.
Curtis Michael Allgier is an American white supremacist skinhead who is being held in the Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah, for the murder of corrections officer Stephen Anderson.
Erasing Hate is a 2011 American TV documentary chronicling the efforts of reformed white power skinhead Bryon Widner to remove his numerous racist facial tattoos. Written, produced, and directed by Bill Brummel, it first aired on June 6, 2011 on MSNBC.
The Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP) was a far-right neo-Nazi political party active in the United States between 2013 and 2018, affiliated with the broader "alt-right" movement that became active within the U.S. during the 2010s. It was considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center's list.
The Vinlanders Social Club (VSC) was formed in 2003 by associates of and previous members of the skinhead group Outlaw Hammerskins. In 2010, the Phoenix Police Department, with assistance from the local branch of the Anti-Defamation League, arrested several members of the Arizona chapter. Following his departure from the Hammerskins, Eric “The Butcher” Fairburn and Brien James began the Hoosier State Skinheads group, while Steven Smith with four other exmembers formed the Keystone State Skinheads. These two groups in conjunction with the Ohio State Skinheads joined forces in 2003 and formed the VSC.
The Rise Above Movement (RAM) is a militant alt-right Southern California-based street fighting group variously described as "a loose collective of violent neo-Nazis and fascists", white nationalist, white supremacist, and far-right. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), it "is inspired by identitarian movements in Europe and is trying to bring the philosophies and violent tactics to the United States." Its members are primarily located in the areas of Orange County and San Diego, and are variously numbered at 20 to 50. Individual RAM members are also members of other organizations, such as the self-described Identitarian Identity Evropa/American Identity Movement, the "Western chauvinist" Proud Boys, and the neo-Nazi skinhead Hammerskin Nation, according to Northern California Anti-Racist Action (NoCARA).