Tom Metzger

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tom Metzger
Born April 9, 1938 (1938-04-09) (age 70)
Flag of the United States
Children John Metzger, Lori Metzger

Thomas Linton Metzger (born April 9, 1938) is the founder of the White Aryan Resistance. Metzger has been incarcerated in Los Angeles County, California and Toronto, Ontario, and has been involved in several government inquiries and lawsuits. He has participated in race discussions and interviews with CNN and Telemundo, and has appeared in numerous documentaries about White nationalism.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Metzger was born and raised in Indiana. [1] He served in the U.S. Army from 1961 until 1964 when he moved to Southern California to work in the electronics industry.[1] For a short time, he was a member of the John Birch Society and attended Anti-Communist luncheon meetings sponsored by the Douglas Aircraft Corporation.[1]

Metzger served as a Barry Goldwater precinct worker in 1964, but by 1968 moved to Fallbrook, California and supported George C. Wallace for President.[1] Meztger stopped paying taxes in the 1970s and by 1972 his tax protest over the Vietnam War destroyed his thriving television business but introduced him to other tax protesters who, he said, were "atheist racists, Christian Identity racists, Nazis, all kinds of people."[1]

During the 1970s he joined the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which was led by David Duke, eventually becoming the Grand Dragon for the State of California. In summer 1979, he organized a patrol to capture illegal Mexican immigrants south of Fallbrook, California. Metzger's Klan organization also had a security force which was involved in confrontations with anti-Klan protesters. Metzger's branch of the Klan split with Duke's organization in 1980 to form the "California Knights of the Ku Klux Klan."[2] Also in 1979 he took Greg Withrow, of the White Student Union "under his wing," which later became the Aryan Youth Movement (AYM), for youth associated with White Aryan Resistance.[3] He was also a minister in the Christian Identity movement.[citation needed]

In 1980, Metzger won the Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives with over 40,000 votes in a San Diego-area district.[4] He had changed his party registration from Republican to Democrat earlier in the year. The Democrats disavowed his candidacy, instead endorsing incumbent four-term Republican Clair Burgener.[5] Metzger lost by over 200,000 votes in November to a several-term incumbent in a heavily Republican district.

In 1982 he sought the Democratic Party's U.S. Senatorial nomination, running against then-Governor Jerry Brown and author Gore Vidal. He received 3% of the vote.

[edit] White Aryan Resistance

Main article: White Aryan Resistance

Metzger left the Klan after the election and formed the "White American Political Association" in order to promote "pro-White" candidates for office. He ran for the United States Senate in 1982, winning almost 76,000 votes (and 2.8% of the vote) in the Democratic Party Primary.[citation needed] In 1983, he changed the name of his group to "White Aryan Resistance" (WAR). WAR worked to recruit members in prisons, and rejected Christianity as a form of Judaism.

Metzger made numerous television appearances in addition to hosting his own cable access show. In November 1988, his son appeared on an episode of the Geraldo Rivera show in which a brawl broke out and Rivera's nose was broken after a chair was thrown at him.[6]

The group was eventually bankrupted as the result of a civil lawsuit centered on its involvement in the 1988 murder of Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian man who came to the United States to attend college. In 1988, white power skinheads affiliated to WAR were convicted of killing Seraw and sent to prison. Kenneth Mieske said he and the two others killed Seraw "because of his race."[7] Metzger declared that they did a "civic duty" by killing Seraw.[8] Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a civil suit against him, arguing that WAR influenced Seraw's killers by encouraging their group East Side White Pride to commit violence.[9][10]

At the trial, WAR national vice president Dave Mazzella testified how the Metzgers instructed WAR members to commit violence against minorities. Tom and John Metzger were found civilly liable under the doctrine of vicarious liability, in which one can be liable for a tort committed by a subordinate or other person taking instructions. The jury returned the largest civil verdict in Oregon history at the time—$12.5 million—against Metzger and WAR.[11] The Metzgers' house was seized, and most of WAR's profits go to paying off the judgment.

[edit] Post Oregon trial

After the trial, Metzger's home was transferred to Seraw's estate for $121,500, while Metzger was allowed to keep $45,000 under California's Homestead Act.[12] The SPLC and ADL came up with $45,000 need to pay Meztger for the home.[12] Metzger was warned that any damage left to the house would result in a lawsuit, and while he left it "a mess" with cracked windows, there was no serious damage.[12] As a result of the sale of his home, he was forced to move into an apartment.[12]

In May 1991, Metzger had to agree to stop selling T-shirts of Bart Simpson in a Nazi uniform with the words "Pure Nazi Dude" and "Total Nazi Dude".[13] He was convicted in 1991 of burning a cross in 1983, and sentenced to six months in prison and 300 hours community service working with minorities.[14] He was released from prison 46 days into his sentence to be with his critically ill wife, who died after the seizure of his home.[15] In 1992, Metzger and his son violated a court order not to leave the country and entered Canada to speak to the Heritage Front. Soon afterwards, he was arrested for violating Canadian immigration laws by entering the country to "promote racial hatred".[16] He was summoned at US Treasury Department inquiries concerning racist messages on back side of fake dollar bills.

Metzger appeared on a 2003 documentary by Briton Louis Theroux, titled "Louis and the Nazis".

In recent years, Metzger has advocated the "lone wolf" method of organization, of which there are many, for white nationalist groups, which states that a person should not outwardly display his/her racist ideology, but must act covertly.[17] Metzger hosts a weekly radio talk show called Insurgent Radio, on the Internet-based Turner Radio Network (not affiliated with the Turner Broadcasting System) in Temecula, California.

Metzger still makes payments to Seraw's family.[18]

He is also a possible inspiration for Cameron Alexander of the movie American History X.[citation needed]

Metzger currently resides near Warsaw, Indiana. His writings can often be found in the Warsaw Times Union. Online at http://www.timesuniononline.com/ under the "Letters" Section.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c d e "Extremist Finds Cable TV is Forum for Right-wing Views", New York Times, October 7, 1986. Retrieved on 2007-09-18. 
  2. ^ "The Real David Duke," Newsweek, November 18, 1991, Pg. 24
  3. ^ "The Godfathers", Southern Poverty Law Center, Fall 2006. Retrieved on 2007-11-15. 
  4. ^ "Clair Burgener dies at 84", North County Times, September 10, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-07-14. 
  5. ^ "Democrats Disavow Nominee From Klan", New York Times, June 6, 1980. 
  6. ^ "Racist Violence", geraldo.com, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-07-14. 
  7. ^ "Guilt Admitted in Racial Killing", New York Times, May 3, 1989. Retrieved on 2007-11-18. 
  8. ^ "Making War on WAR", Time, October 22, 1990. Retrieved on 2007-09-18. 
  9. ^ "Sending a $12.5 Million Message to a Hate Group", New York Times, October 26, 1990. Retrieved on 2007-09-18. 
  10. ^ "Lawyer makes racists pay", USA Today, October 24, 1990. Retrieved on 2007-09-18. 
  11. ^ "Review/Television; Behind the Hate, With Bill Moyers", New York Times, May 13, 1991. Retrieved on 2007-08-26. 
  12. ^ a b c d "Metzger Leaves Former Home a Mess, but it's undamaged", The Oregonian, September 19, 1991. Retrieved on 2007-09-18.  page f3
  13. ^ "Bart Used by Extremists, "The Washington Times" May 13, 1993
  14. ^ "Supremacist Gets 6 Months in Cross Burning", New York Times, December 4, 1991. Retrieved on 2007-09-18. 
  15. ^ "Klan leader let out of jail to be with critically ill wife," The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec), February 22, 1992
  16. ^ "White Aryan leaders deported Jewish groups applaud decision," The Globe and Mail July 3, 1992
  17. ^ "Tom Metzger/White Aryan Resistance", Anti-Defamation League, August 24, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-08-25. 
  18. ^ "Hate-crime case award will be hard to collect, experts say", The Press-Enterprise, August 24, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-08-25. 

[edit] Further reading

  • Morris Dees. Hate on Trial: The Case Against America's Most Dangerous Neo-Nazi. Villard, (February 23, 1993) ISBN 067940614X (280 pages)[1]
  • Elinor Langer. A Hundred Little Hitlers: The Death of a Black Man, the Trial of a White Racist, and the Rise of the Neo-Nazi Movement in America. New York: Henry Holt, 2003. ISBN 0-8050-5098-1

[edit] External links