James Stern: The new leader of the neo-Nazi group is a black man who pledges to dismantle him

Without warning his supporters or even his entourage, the long-standing president of a neo-Nazi group that inherited the past has given way to a black California human rights defender.

James Hart Stern, 54, with a history of infiltration into white supremacist groups, is the new leader of the National Socialist Movement. And his first action as president was to engage in a lawsuit against the neo-Nazi group by asking a Virginia judge to convict him of conspiring to commit acts of violence against the murderer Unite the Right in Charlottesville in 2017.

He then plans to turn the hate group website into a space for Holocaust history classes.

"I've done the toughest and most dangerous part of it," Stern told the Washington Post during his first interview since the takeover of the National Socialist Movement. "As a black man, I took over a neo-Nazi group and I foiled it."

For weeks, the sudden change of power confounded those who study hate groups and confounded the members of the organization, who heard nothing from the man who led the group of hate groups. hatred based in Detroit for 24 years, former NSM chairman Jeff Schoep.

Schoep has not yet publicly spoken of this upheaval, but Stern finally fills the whites. On Friday, the activist recounted the entire history of his unconventional accession to power – an "epic" story, which includes infiltration, persuasion and allusion to manipulation.

There is a reason, he said, that some people call him the "racing whisperer".

To understand how Stern succeeded in supplanting Schoep's organization, you must first understand how the Michigan neo-Nazis came in search of the California activist.

While serving a jail sentence in Mississippi for mail fraud, Stern established ties with his cell mate and formerly Ku Klux Klan's grand assistant, Edgar Ray Killen. The KKK leader was convicted of murdering three civil rights activists by the "Mississippi Burning". Although Killen regularly called Stern a racial insult, he nevertheless granted power of attorney to his cell mate for his history and heritage.

Stern was released from prison on parole in 2011 and, in 2016, he used his legal discretion to dissolve the Klan organization that Killen previously ran.

This was his first successful infiltration – and the tradition of Stern's relationship with the KKK leader is what attracted Schoep for the first time.

In 2014, Schoep called Stern without notice to inquire about his relationship with Killen, the activist said. Schoep asked to see the man's identity card and said that Stern was the first black man that his organization contacted since Malcolm X. Stern had searched for Schoep's name, had discovered that he was a white supremacist, and then organized a meeting in California. for a little summit of race relations.

The two men have since maintained some kind of strange relationship, said the civil rights activist.

Schoep and Stern remained firmly rooted in their own political camps, he said, fundamentally opposed to what the other represents. But they also engaged in a regular debate about the Holocaust, the ugliness of the Nazi swastika, the fallibility of Schoep's white nationalist ideals and, above all, the fate of his hate group.

According to Stern, the goal was always to try to change Schoep's mind.

"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."

Change Schoep's beliefs, not Stern.

But according to the version of Stern's recent events, he was able to accomplish the next best thing.

In early 2019, Schoep went to Stern to seek legal advice on the lawsuit filed in 2017 by a Charlottesville counter-protestant against NSM and other white nationalist groups who attended the Unite the Right rally. .

Schoep seemed "shaken," said Stern, and began talking about making a change. "I hoped he was talking about his ideology," Stern said.

Instead, the white nationalist leader referred to NSM as "albatrosses hanging around his neck" and said he was looking for a way to get out of it. He still has the same beliefs, said Stern, but he was willing to cut ties with NSM and create a new organization because he felt underrated by his supporters and was excluded from the mainstream of the white nationalist movement that had swept away the country following the 2016 presidential election.

Schoep was concerned about the repercussions of the Charlottesville lawsuit and the legal costs that he had to bear, said Stern, and he confided to the Californian activist while he was looking for solutions.

"I saw a crack in this armor," Stern said.

He therefore encouraged Schoep to make a fresh start, entrusting control of the Detroit-based organization and website to Stern.

And Schoep said yes.

"He knew that he had the most vulnerable members, the most cowardly they had in the organization," Stern said. "He realized that someone was going to commit a crime and he would be held responsible."

In mid-January, Schoep filed incorporation documents with Michigan's Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Department to officially transfer the National Socialist Movement to Stern. according to documents filed with the state. On February 15, Stern appeared in the prosecution's court documents as a representative of NSM. Stern does not appear on the list of individual defendants.

Now he is preparing for what will follow – and asks the Jewish leaders for advice. Stern said he did not plan to dissolve the company because he did not want Schoep's supporters, or others in the white nationalist movement, to rebuild it.

Stern admits that his plans for the website are still evolving, but his main goal is to offer it as a salvaged space to Jewish organizations that could help him educate NSM followers about Holocaust history.

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

Schoep took control of NSM in 1994 and was responsible for the growth of its members and brand as an organization uniting Holocaust deniers and Adolf Hitler acolytes. The group runs a website that attracts millions of visitors from around the world, Stern said, and has organized public gatherings across the country.

The group, whose members wear SS-style uniforms that mirror those of Nazi Germany, was founded under a different name in 1974 by two former Nazi party officials, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. "Signing the direction of an organization as old is tantamount to a death sentence in the white nationalist movement," said Keegan Hankes, research analyst at SPLC. "It's one of the strangest things I've seen since I started following these things five years ago."

Schoep did not respond to a request for comment from The Post on Friday, nor did many of the people listed on the NSM website as leaders of the organization. A man who identifies himself as SS Captain Harry L. Hughes III and who appears on NSM's List of Public Relations Directors, said in an email that he "was not involved in NSM legal affairs" and "no was not free to discuss anything. until Commander Schoep personally makes a statement. "

"Just like you and the rest of the media, I'm suspended too," added Hughes.

Matthew Heimbach, an iconic figure of white nationalism who briefly served as the organization's director of outreach over the past year, told Associated Press that there was a conflict between NSM leaders, including Schoep, and its members. Heimbach estimated that the group had 40 paying members last year.

Hankes, of SPLC, said the biggest challenge the group faced was overtaken by the more refined efforts of new right-wing leaders such as Richard Spencer. There were tensions within the organization about the need to move to less violent and less explicit neo-Nazism, he said.

"Many of these groups see [NSM] extremely detrimental to anything that concerns identity politics, "said Hankes.

Stern told The Post that he and Schoep had discussed this internal dispute and that Schoep had expressed the wish to leave NSM behind and create a new organization with less luggage. Although Schoep is no longer legally affiliated with NSM, he is still being sued because he is listed as a defendant on a personal basis.

"This is definitely not good for him, and it should not be either," Stern said. "You spend 25 years terrorizing people, you can not change brands overnight. It does not work like that.

From California, where he leads the racial reconciliation advocacy ministries, Stern is still sorting out the legal subtleties that his new leadership entails. He is currently on the NSM lawyer list at the trials, but a judge said Friday that he could not be NSM's lawyer because companies are not legally allowed to represent themselves.

Stern said that he was working on recruiting an outside lawyer to resubmit his motion for summary judgment on the trial. He also offered the plaintiff's lawyers full access to NSM social media accounts, he said – because he claims to own them as well.

"Tell me what you want from me," says Stern. "But I've done it twice now."