American Front
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The American Front was a white power skinhead gang, which was started in the mid-1980s in San Francisco, California by Bob Heick, aka "Nazi Bob", aka "Bob Blitz".
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[edit] History
The American Front began as a loose organization modelled after Britain's National Front, which attempted to merge the skinhead subculture with white power politics. Heick was known for terrorizing the San Francisco punk and anarchist scenes. This climaxed with Heick and his friend breaking the windows of a Haight Street anarchist bookstore, Bound Together Books.
Heick began working with Tom Metzger's W.A.R. in 1988 after gaining notice for holding the Third Positionist themed "White Workers Day Parade", on May 1 1988.Though Heick was never an official member of W.A.R., Metzger promoted Heick as a youth spokesman for the movement.
Heick and the American Front gained notoriety by being a thorn in the side of artist Boyd Rice. Heick and Rice posed in American Front uniforms for an article on neo-Nazis in Sassy Magazine. Rice claims he was never really a member of the American Front, but he liked the dynamic character of Heick. Hieck moved with his family to Portland, Oregon were he has since not been actively involved in the Front since the mid 90s.
[edit] Activity
In 1985, after years of associating with peers of all races, including an asian american girlfriend, and changing his name from Bob Nohawk to Bob Blitz, Heick began writing and distributing original leaflets on various topics mostly from a Nationalist anti-communist stance in response to the increasing leftist influence in the Punk scene. After the window breaking incident at Bound Together Books, the anarchist collective used the original American Front flyer as part of a press release listing several alleged skinhead crimes committed in the Haight. Only the window breaking was in any way related to American Front activity.
The press release triggered a week long flurry of media attention on Skinheads, beginning with SF Examiner headline "Thugs Terrorize Haight". TV and radio outlets followed suit resulting in the first wave of media attention on U.S. Skinheads ever. Subculutrally, it increased the view of Skinheads as a separate entity, instead of a mere subdivision of the Punk scene.
Originally intended as a Banner organization for all Skinheads regardless of local group i.e. Bay Area Skin Heads (B.A.S.H.) S.F Skins, North Side Firm (L.A.), The American Front had no formal sctructure or membership. Skinheads from Southern California began using the name in gang context, which was very common in the L.A. punk scene. That faction of the American Front was completely independent of Heick after 1985, and spread to other cities due in part the members being active members of the U.S. Military
In San Francisco, Heick was losing favor with the mostly apolitical Skinheads. The media attention and constant vandalism, brought increased heat from the local police. In addition Heick's prgression from "Patriotic" to "Nazi" politics lost him a lot of friends and he was accused by a few of "trying to take over the scene".
Heick changed direction associating with Heavy Metal fans and "Redneck" types, forming a short lived organization United White Brethren in North and South Bay Areas.
Upon his return to San Francisco in 1987, he found the newer generation of Skinheads to be far more receptive to "Nazi" ideology, as it had become fashoinable. It was at this time that the political organization (no longer solely a "skinhead" group) generally recognized as the American Front was formed.
On May 1, 1988, The American Front held the first "White Workers Day" march on Haight Street in San Francisco. The 65 mostly skinhead participants marched unapposed from "Skinhead Hill" in Buena Vista Park to Golden Gate Park. This was heralded by Tom Metzger of W.A.R. on his hotline in the WAR newspaper and on TV, due to the promotion of the "Third Positionist" agenda that was favored by both the A.F. and W.A.R. at the time, as opposed to a Nazi or KKK approach the latter of which Metzger was desperately trying to shed.
The American Front tabloid Aryan Warrior was published soon after and had the minor distinction of being the first White Nationalist newspaper to be laid out on a laser printer.
Metzger began referring media to Heick as spokesman for Skinheads, even over members of his own group, like his former youth spokesman Dave Mazella (who later testified against Metzger in his 1990 Portland, Oregon civil trial)
The American Front gained a lot of local and national media exposure. Heick Appeared on the news magazine show The Reporters, which focused mainly on Heick and included news footage of the Mayday march. Numerous print interveiws including Rolling Stone, Hustler, and the now infamous Sassy (teen girl's magazine) featured the American Front. Of all media zappearances, none gained as much attention as the "Young Hate Mongers" episode of Geraldo, which led to Rivera's famous nose breaking.
By 1989 there where Americam Front units in 14 states, ironically San Francisco, birthplace of the organization, held very little support for the group. Mayday 1989 also saw an American Front march, this time at San Francisco City Hall. To avoid the inevitable leftist counter protest, the media was only alerted at the last minute. This ploy backfired giving the AF zero media coverage for the demonstration which was only witnessed by Police and the homeless people who congragate in the area.
This was soon followed by another debacle that became known as "Aryan Woodflop". Heick tried to organize a concert of Skinhead bands in a small town in Northern California. The facility cancelled when they found out it was being sponsored by the A.F. Soon after a local activist informed Heick that he knew of a local Doctor who had numerous acres of pasture and wife who was turned on by Nazis. Heick began the initial planning of the event but was pushed aside by Metzger and it became a WAR event. Heick and Metzger disagreed on almost every facet of the planning of the festival including the name "Aryan Woodstock". Most importantly Heick disagreed with Metzger's promoting the event on his "Aryan Update" phone message, which was monitored by anti-racist activists, and would give them just as much time to organize against the event as WAR would have to plan it.
The undoing of the festival lay in the permit. A WAR activist with a legal background undertook the task of securing the required permits. After speaking with three different beurocrats, he was told that no permit would be required to play live music at a private event on private land, as long as sanitation was provided for.
The two weeks leading up to the event saw "Arayan Woodstock" as the lead local news story. Both Heick and Metzger where seen attending city council meetings filled with community groups, and activits protesting the proposed event. The county sought an injunction to block the gathering, and Heick appeared before Judge William Snowden to defend their right to assemble. Judge Snowden ruled thatthe gathering may take place, but there could be no music. Roughly 300 people from all over the US made it on to the property before the landowner Howard Londsale caved to police pressure and allowed the authorities to close off the entrace to land, thereby stranding many wouldbe atendees, some who had travelled great distances to be there out side admid a sizeable force of several hundred well organized protesters.
The failure of the event created tension between A.F. and W.A.R. which increased soon after when it was revealed that a long time W.A.R. fanancial contributor felt neglected by the Metzger organization, and switched his support to the American Front. The undercurrent of hositility toward Heick then extended to his then live-in girlfriend, who soon after ended their relationship, and her ties to the movement.
Heick spent the next year visiting various A.F. units in California and across the U.S. before getting married and settling down in Portland Oregon.
While still in the Bay Area in 1990 Heick decided to reverse his failed tactic from the previous year's May Day march and openly announce on the AF Ministry of Information Hotline, that they Would appear in San Francisco's Union Square the first Saturday in May. The message ran for a month prior to the event with the correct date time and place, but the opposition forces had a counter demonstration 3 days prior (the actual May 1) on Haight street first, where they beat up a random lone skinhead minding his own business, and called it a victory in the press. When the day of the actual event arrived Heick arrived with the smallest group yet 10 men and 3 women and marched directly into 300 missile throwing protesters. Police descended upon the A.F. contingent and stripped them of their defensive items (wooden shields). Police were hit from both sides and made no attempt to separate the two groups. 20 minutes of projectile volly and shouting ensued resulting in a broken arm, and a minor head injury and heick's own broken nose. The AF managed to maintain their perimeter in what the S.F. Examiner title the photo of "The Battle of Union Square". Even this press was overshadowed by the better footage of a completely pointless apolitical riot at famous "party school" Chico State that same weekend.
In October 1990, the same week Tom Metzger was found liable in Portland Oregon civil court involving the death of Mulegata Seraw, an Ethiopian who died during an altercation with local skinheads, Heick relocated there. This fact was known to every anti-racist group in town, such as the Coalition for Human Digity who published flyers with his home address and made press releases announcing his arrival. Local TV news showed up to his apartment within days of moving in.
Heick still received regular invitations to appear on national television, but unlike in the 80s, the new "trash TV" shows where the order of the day, based only on sesationalism. Heick flatly refused any and such offers opting for actual news program interveiws exclusively. While regularly on local news and talk radio shows in various markets, Heick's and the American Front in general nation focus was waning. Some of the slack was taken up by other unit leaders, but Heick focused on local activism.
In 1991 Heick received a phone call from a local weekly PDXS, asking his opinion of the Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice protest of a Beverton record store that sold "White Power" records (under the counter). Heick Had no idea it was happening but made a phone call to the house in Beverton occpied by the bulk of the Local AF members at the time. About 15 American Front and supporters made their way to the store to check it out and had arrived before the SHARP protesters. The SHARP detachment numbered around 4 people who arrived by city bus, upon seeing themselves outnumbered by AF opposition, they stayed on the bus and kept going. The entire imcident capured by TV news crews they had summoned.
May Day 1991 was held at Portland City Hall and was intended to counteract Portland self-congratulatory stance on the Metzger verdict. There was a large counter protest presance but no violence.
The American Front activity focused on demonstrations and literature distribution. The Ministry of Information Hotline was revived in Portland, and was active till Heick left the group in 1995.
Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center appeared on a local Morinig Talkshow, one AF member and 2 supporters stood in line to be part of the audience. Instead of allowing them entrance they shut the doors keeping them and half of the regular audience out of the studio. This was acknowledged immediately on the air of the live show, with Dees opening his comments warning the public of Heick and the American Front.
Dees' next interview that day was schedualed to be at PBS affiliate OPB which was picketed by the AF, as was community center appearance which Dees cancelled.
1992 Heick and American Front associates where the first out of state activists to arrive at the Randy Weaver stand-off at Ruby Ridge. Heick was fatured in a video tape of the event blockading a fuel truck and lambasting the local contractor driving the rig for supporting government tyranny.
Much of the focus of AF activity was in protest of the Hate Crime laws, which they contend only target whites.
The American Front was also known for harassing Portland city commissioner Mike Lindberg, who called the group "Gay Bashing Skinheads" in the press, even though no such crimes where ever attributed to the group, nor where any other acts of violence. The Salem area unit of the AF held regular demonstrations at the State Capital and other government offices in central Oregon.
In the 1990s the Washington and California sections published "The Voice of Revolution" magazine, which had strong ties to the newly formed Combat 18 in England
In New York, Jim Porazzo, published "Greystorm" the title being a reference to the Greyshirt uniform of the official American Front.
In Portland Heick published "Revolutionary Nationalist"
By 1993 the movement in general had changed. Political activities, grassroots activism, and organizational structures where on the decline. As the majority of the White Nationalist movement came from the Skinhead archetype, the focus on creating a realistic and rational racial ideology was thrown out the window in favor of fantasy extremism for its own sake.
[edit] Change of leadership and location
The American Front briefly resurfaced under the leadership of James Porazzo, who moved the American Front to Harrison, Arkansas and began to push a Third Position philosophy. During this period, the American Front used pro-working class, anti-capitalist, environmentalist, anti-globalization, communist positions in conjunction with a racial organizing platform — just as they had used the skinhead scene, industrial music and Satanism in the 1980s.
Porazzo targeted Jews as the major players in the capitalist system, and blamed Zionism for the general state of global turmoil. Porazzo advocated "socialist revolution in a racialist context." He wrote: "We propose a workable, realistic alternative, and that is separatism! White autonomy, Black autonomy, Brown autonomy and death to the current twisted system..."
[edit] Aftermath
In the 2000s, the American Front was no longer active, except for a few activists who functioned only on the Internet. All of the group's websites and contact addresses have since disappeared.
