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Writer: Marlize Duncan
One of the oldest and largest neo-Nazi organizations in the United States has a new leader. A black man by the name of James Stern. And no, this isn’t an adaptation of the Spike Lee film, Blackkklansman.
James Stern is a pastor and activist from Los Angeles, California who heads the Racial Reconciliation Outreach Ministries (RROM), “a multi-racial, multi-issue, progressive, international membership organization fighting for social change”, according to his website. As the new president of the neo-Nazi movement, he plans on dismantling it from the inside. In an interview with CNN, he states that he wants to, "Change it, reverse it, and ultimately destroy it”.
With many members of the National Socialist Movement (preceded by the American Nazi Party) confused at the shift in power from prior leader Jeff Schoep to James Stern, the process of new leadership was described as an act of deception. It began with the NSM, along with more than 20 other organizations, being sued by people who had been injured in the tragic events that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.
With the lawsuits building and chaos within the organization, Schoep wanted to dismantle the NSM to rid of legal trouble, and before doing so he appointed Stern. Stern, when in prison for mail fraud, shared a cell with onetime Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen, and after Killen’s 2018 death he had his prison identification. After not handing over the identification, conversations between Stern and Schoep commenced.
These conversations eventually led up to James Stern convincing Jeff Schoep not to dismantle the organization, but to hand it over to him because, "if [Stern] dissolves it, someone else is just going to get it and re-incorporate it, rebrand it. If you gave it to me, that won't happen, and [...] you will know who has it." Although Schoep denies this claim, it is written in Michigan public record that he is the current president.
As for James Stern currently, his plans for the NSM begin with filing court documents against the organization to undermine their defense against the lawsuit, which asks for a Virginia federal court to issue a judgment before the trial of any lawsuits. He also plans to turn the movement’s website into a place where Jewish organizations can create ways to promote Holocaust remembrance, where white supremacists can get educated on the subject.
With many ideas not set in stone, Stern tells Washington Post, “Everything is out in the open [but] my plans and intentions are not to let this group prosper.
Links:
https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/spike-lee-blackkklansman-connects-past-to-present-1441846339956
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/02/us/black-president-nazi-group/index.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/state-emergency-charlottesville-virginia-n792126?icid=related
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/03/01/how-black-man-outsmarted-neo-nazi-group-became-their-new-leader/?utm_term=.cc0aef2fdc0b
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