Inspired by a series of hate crimes and the current election season, white supremacists have grown angrier and more energetic in 2016, according to experts.
It’s been one year since nine black parishioners were gunned down in the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, murders that then-21-year-old Dylann Roof — who is white — is accused of committing. Last July, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced a 33-count indictment against Roof that charged him with federal hate crimes for the June 17 attack, alleging that he sought to ignite racial tensions across the United States with the massacre. Friends of Roof have said that he wanted to start a race war. His trial is set for Nov. 7; prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
That massacre came during what experts described as a multi-year surge in activity among white supremacists, a surge that has continued into this year. And presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump may be fueling the fire.
“A lot of the extreme right perceives Trump as being largely sympathetic to many of their views,” said Mark Pitcavage, a historian for the Anti-Defamation League. “They rather enthusiastically support what they perceive as anti-Hispanic attitudes on his part, anti-Muslim attitudes on his part and other similar ideas.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...-white-supremacists-continues-surge/85931440/
It’s been one year since nine black parishioners were gunned down in the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, murders that then-21-year-old Dylann Roof — who is white — is accused of committing. Last July, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced a 33-count indictment against Roof that charged him with federal hate crimes for the June 17 attack, alleging that he sought to ignite racial tensions across the United States with the massacre. Friends of Roof have said that he wanted to start a race war. His trial is set for Nov. 7; prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
That massacre came during what experts described as a multi-year surge in activity among white supremacists, a surge that has continued into this year. And presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump may be fueling the fire.
“A lot of the extreme right perceives Trump as being largely sympathetic to many of their views,” said Mark Pitcavage, a historian for the Anti-Defamation League. “They rather enthusiastically support what they perceive as anti-Hispanic attitudes on his part, anti-Muslim attitudes on his part and other similar ideas.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...-white-supremacists-continues-surge/85931440/