How a black man 'outsmarted' a neo-Nazi group and became their new leader
Dave Weigel RetweetedWild. He shared a prison cell with the white supremacist responsible for the Mississippi Burning murders and got him to sign over his life rights. Then, he convinced the neo-Nazi group behind Unite the Rights fatal rally to sign over ownership. Wild.
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How a black man outsmarted a neo-Nazi group and became their new leader
By Katie Mettler
March 2 at 10:03 AM
This story has been updated.
Without notifying his followers or even his inner circle, the longtime president of a legacy neo-Nazi group signed over its control to a black civil rights activist from California. James Hart Stern, a 54-year-old with a history of infiltrating white-supremacist groups, is the new leader of the National Socialist Movement.
Sterns first move as president was to address a pending lawsuit against the group by asking a Virginia judge to find it guilty of conspiring to commit violence at the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. Next, he plans to transform the hate groups website into a space for Holocaust history lessons.
I did the hard and dangerous part, Stern told The Washington Post in his first interview since taking over the National Socialist Movement. As a black man, I took over a neo-Nazi group and outsmarted them.
For weeks, the sudden change in power had confounded those who study hate groups and perplexed those within the organization, who had heard nothing from Jeff Schoep, the man who led the Detroit-based hate group for 24 years.
Before Friday, neither man had publicly addressed the organizational changes. ... Stern came forward Friday to share the full story of his unconventional rise to power: an epic tale, he said, that includes infiltration, persuasion and a hint of manipulation. Theres a reason, he said, that some call him the race whisperer.
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Katie Mettler is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post. She previously worked for the Tampa Bay Times in St. Petersburg, Fla. Follow https://twitter.com/kemettler
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Sat 2 Mar 2019 12.11 EST Last modified on Sat 2 Mar 2019 16.43 EST
They call him the race whisperer, a black civil rights activist able to manipulate some of the most noxious far-right figureheads in the US. Now James Hart Stern has triumphed again and it is possibly his most extraordinary accomplishment to date. Stern, 54, has emerged as the new leader of one of the largest and oldest neo-Nazi groups in the US the National Socialist Movement.
Stern said he had gradually wooed the groups longstanding leader before eventually seizing control. As a black man, I took over a neo-Nazi group and outsmarted them, he said.
Having assumed control of an organisation whose members wear SS-like uniforms that resemble those worn in Nazi Germany, Stern now intends to undermine it.
His opening move as NSM president has been to address a lawsuit against the neo-Nazi group by asking a Virginia judge to find it guilty of conspiring to commit violence at a notorious white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/02/race-whisperer-seizes-control-american-neo-nazi-group