State of Hate in the Deep South (2024)

June 04, 2024

Each year since 1990, the SPLC has published an annual census of hate and antigovernment groups in the United States. The number is one barometer of the level of hard-right activity in the country. The map depicts approximate locations and is the result of a year of monitoring.

The SPLC tracks both hate groups and antigovernment extremist groups – which, combined, make up some of the most extreme elements of the hard right. These groups often overlap, work alongside one another and often converge around a willingness to engage in political violence, either inflict or accept harm, and deny legally established rights to historically oppressed groups of people.

In 1981, the SPLC created Klanwatch to monitor Ku Klux Klan activity. The information was used in groundbreaking legal cases. Renamed the Intelligence Project in 1998, the reporting continues to be rooted in the experiences of communities, especially in the South. This closer look at the Deep South shines a light on a place still beset by hate but is also practiced in using information to forge a path of transformation to reverse the tide of white nationalism.

The state of hate in:

• Alabama
• Florida
• Georgia
• Louisiana
• Mississippi

Alabama

While the number of groups in Alabama remains small, Alabamians were subjected to hateful threats, flyers, protests and gatherings that attempted to intimidate and harass a community actively working to build a more inclusive state.

The Groups:

• Active Club
• Alabama Parents Involved in Education
• Asatru Folk Assembly
• Church of the Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
• Eagle Forum
• Incels
• League of the South
• LewRockwell.com
• Moms for Liberty
• Occidental Dissent
• Patriot Front
• Southern Cultural Center

Incidents:

• 120 hate flyering incidents
• There were 12 attempts to ban public library books, including 74 titles
• In June, masked Patriot Front members targeted Prattville’s first-ever Pride picnic with hate signs and chants
• In May, white nationalists from Patriot Front hacked a road sign on Interstate 65 near Clanton with hate slogans
• In August, speakers from white nationalist groups that support anti-black eugenics gathered for the second annual neo-Confederate conference in Wetumpka
• In October, Jewish houses of worship in Montgomery, Dothan, Auburn, Mobile and Birmingham received bomb threat

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Florida

Florida had the second highest number of hate and antigovernment groups in the U.S. The groups used various tactics from direct-action protest and flyering to political action and local organizing. They also covered a range of ideological affiliations from overtly bigoted neo-Nazi and anti-immigrant organizations to those pushing election conspiracies and mobilizing the anti-student inclusion efforts. Florida acted as the Southern base and headquarters for many national hate and anti-government groups.

The Groups:

Incidents:

• 116 hate-flyering incidents
• There were 33 attempts to ban public library books, including 2,672 titles.
• In June, anti-student inclusion group Moms for Liberty held its national convention in Florida.
• In November, a leader of an antisemitic group Goyim Defense League faced charges related to distributing flyers to private residences. In late February, the leader also harassed a Jewish gathering with Hitler salutes and antisemitic comments referencing the Holocaust.
• In July, the Florida State Guard became a state-sanctioned militia entity praised by hard-right extremists.

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Georgia

With 49 combined hate and antigovernment groups in the state, Georgia faced some of the more violent edge of the white nationalist movement, including activists engaged in fight training. Militia groups that had taken a step back since Jan. 6, 2021, reestablished themselves in Georgia, while conspiracy propagandist groups like the John Birch Society continued their steady presence.

The Groups:

Incidents:

• 106 hate-flyering incidents
• There were 18 attempts to ban public library books, including 77 titles
• In April, a Georgia teen was charged after he allegedly made bomb threats on X, former known as Twitter, to a local synagogue

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Louisiana

Hard-right activity in Louisiana was emblematic of 2023 activity across the U.S. Louisiana’s local chapter of Act for America, the nation's largest anti-Muslim organization, mimicked fellow chapters and reemerged in fall in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. American States Assembly, the second largest sovereign citizen organization in the U.S., maintained a chapter in Louisiana amid a growing movement that is flush with false conspiracies.

The Groups:

• ACT for America
• American States Assembly
• Empire Wash*taw de Dugdahmoundyah
• Louisiana Family Forum
• Moms for Liberty
• National Justice Party
• Patriot Front
• Ruth Institute

Incidents:

• 117 Hate flyering incidents
• Three attempts to ban public library books, including 24 titles
• In May, homes in New Orleans were littered with little packages filled with hate messages
• In August, the white nationalist group Patriot Front targeted the predominantly Black city of Baton Rouge with large banners using coded nationalist language

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Mississippi

Mississippi had the fewest number of hate and antigovernment groups in the region. Groups like Moms for Liberty focused their strategy on the political process, including joining anti-LGBTQ activist Matt Walsh for an anti-transgender bill signing. Mississippi was also littered with hate flyers, banners, stickers and large road signs by two white nationalist groups using false patriotic language and conspiracies.

The Groups:

• American Family Association
• Moms for Liberty
• National Justice Party
• Patriot Front

Incidents:

• 185 hate flyering incidents
• Two attempts to ban public library books, including 15 titles
• In March, white nationalist activists with the group Patriot Front filmed a few hours of clean-up efforts for a white Mississippi family affected by the tornado. The group used the video footage for propaganda and recruitment, taking advantage of the natural disaster

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