How "race whisperer" took control of a neo-Nazi American group | American News

TThey call it the "whisperer race," a black activist capable of manipulating some of the most harmful far right figures in the United States. Now, James Hart Stern has triumphed again – and this is perhaps his most extraordinary achievement to date. Stern, 54, became the new leader of one of the largest and oldest neo-Nazi groups in the United States – the National Socialist Movement.

Stern said that he had been gradually courting the group's long-time leader before finally taking control. "As a black man, I took over a neo-Nazi group and surpassed it," he said.

After taking control of an organization whose members wear SS type uniforms that resemble those of Nazi Germany, Stern now has the intention of undermining it.

As president of NSM, his first decision was to settle a lawsuit against the neo-Nazi group by asking a Virginia judge to convict him of conspiring to commit acts of violence at a notorious gathering of White Nationalists in Charlottesville in 2017.

His next step will be to replace the website of the far right group with lessons in the history of the Holocaust.

It is not surprising that Stern's intervention invited comparisons to Spike Lee's film last year. BlacKkKlansman, in which an African-American policeman infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1970s. (Lee's film was itself based on a true story.)

Stern, too, took shape with the KKK, after dismantling a major white supremacist organization after having befriended the former "great wizard" Edgar Ray Killen while he was "in the dark". they shared a prison cell.

KKK leader convicted Mississippi Burning The murders of three civil rights defenders eventually trusted Stern, who had been jailed for postal fraud, to the extent that he gave the black activist a power of attorney over his estate. In 2016, Stern was able to use its legal discretion to dissolve the infamous Klan organization led by Killen.

Stern's relationship with the KKK leader caught the attention of former President of the National Socialist Movement Jeff Schoep. In 2014, Schoep contacted Stern to discuss his relationship with the leader of KKK, the first black man in his organization to make contact since he contacted civil rights activist Malcolm X.

The two men stayed in touch and Stern said he frequently confronted Schoep about his views on Adolf Hitler, the Holocaust and white supremacism.

"From the first day, I always told him," I do not agree with you; I do not like you, "said Stern. "I talked to him because I wanted to hope to change him," he told the Washington Post.

Earlier this year, Schoep came to Stern for advice on a lawsuit filed by a Protestant opponent in Charlottesville against his group following the Unite the Right rally in 2017 in which a young woman was murdered.

Stern described the man who ran the Detroit-based group for 24 years desperately seeking a way out, partly because of the repercussions of the Charlottesville trial but also because he felt a lack of appreciation of his followers. When Stern proposed to solve the problem by taking control of the Detroit-based organization Schoep, he said, immediately agreed.

Court documents dated February 15 confirm that Mr. Stern is both a director and president of the NSM, although he insists he does not plan to dissolve the company because he does not want Neo-Nazi followers reinvent the group associated with Hitler's acolytes.

"Everything is in the open air. My plans and intentions are not to let this group prosper. It's my goal to break records, said Stern.

The unlikely takeover comes as traditional American neo-Nazi groups are eclipsed by the more nuanced efforts of new right-wing leaders such as Richard Spencer or marginalized by the dominant white nationalist movement that exploded at the time. Following the presidential election of 2016, reports had suggested that prior to Stern's takeover, tension mounted within the organization with a faction advocating a move towards a neo-Nazi minus violent and less explicit. Critics within the party complained of his desire to remain "a gang of politically powerless white supremacists" and voiced concerns about Schoep.

As Stern prepares for a new wave of controversy over his takeover, he says, "Say what you want from me. But I did it twice now.