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Aryan Nations
From Metapedia
Aryan Nations is a religiously based White separatist organization. It was founded in the 1970s by Richard Girnt Butler as an arm of the Christian Identity group Church of Jesus Christ-Christian.
History
Its origin lies in the teachings of Wesley Swift, a significant figure in the early Christian Identity movement. Swift combined British Israelism, antisemitism, and political militancy. He founded his own church in California in the mid 1940s. In addition, he had a daily radio broadcast in California during the 1950s and 60s. In 1957, the name of his church was changed to the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian, which is used today by Aryan Nations churches.
From the 1970s until 2001 the headquarters of Aryan Nations was in a 20 acre (81,000 m²) compound at Hayden Lake, Idaho. There were a number of state chapters, only loosely tied to the main organization. The group ran an annual "World Congress of Aryan Nations" at Hayden Lake for both church members and other right-wing groups.
In September 2000 the Southern Poverty Law Center won a $6.3 million judgment against the Aryan Nations (Bill Sali representing) from an Idaho jury who awarded punitive and compensatory damages to a woman and her son who were attacked by Aryan Nations guards. The lawsuit stemmed from the July 1998 attack when Aryan Nations security guards in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho shot at Victoria Keenan and her son. Bullets struck their car several times, and subsequently the car crashed, after which one of the Aryan Nations guards held the Keenans at gunpoint. As a result of the judgement, Richard Butler turned over the 20-acre compound to the Keenans, who in turn sold the property to a philanthropist, who donated the land to North Idaho College, which designated it a "peace park." Currently, while tours are occasionally given on the property, cows use it for pasture.In February 2001, the group's Hayden Lake compound and intellectual property, including the names "Aryan Nations" and "Church of Jesus Christ Christian", were transferred to the Keenans.
Until 1998 the leadership of the AN remained firmly in the hands of Butler. But by that year he was over eighty and had been in poor health for some time, so at the annual "World Congress", Neuman Britton was appointed as the group's new leader. In August 2001, however, Butler appointed Harold Ray Redfeairn from Ohio, who had been agitating for control since the mid-1990s. Shortly thereafter, Redfeairn and August Kreis, III, propaganda minister of Aryan Nations, led a splinter group away from Butler and was expelled from the organization, but a few months later Redfeairn returned to an alliance with Butler. Redfeairn died in October of 2003. Butler died of heart failure in September 2004.
