Alabama Is Home To 20 Hate Groups, 838 Operate Nationwide, SPLC Says
The Southern Poverty Law Center released its annual list of hate groups nationwide on Feb. 1, and while the number of groups has gone down from last year, there are still 20 Alabama groups that made the cut.
Altogether, the SPLC tracked 838 organizations defined as hate groups in 2020. SPLC classifies an organization as a hate group if it has “beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” As noted on the SPLC website, the organization has been taking an “annual census” of U.S. hate groups since 1990.
“The number is a barometer, albeit only one, of the level of hate activity in the country,” the website says. “The hate map, which depicts the groups’ approximate locations, is the result of a year of monitoring by analysts and researchers and is typically published every January or February. It represents activity by hate groups during the previous year.”
In Alabama groups included in the Montgomery-based SPLC’s Hate Map were:
- Neo-Confederate Groups: The Southern Cultural Center — with chapters in Wetumpka, Dothan, Northport, Oxford and Weogufka — and League of the South, based in Killen.
- Neo-Völkisch Groups: Wolves of Vinland and Asatru Folk Assembly fall into the Neo-Völkisch category, which SPLC describes as “born out of an atavistic defiance of modernity and rationalism … adherents and groups are organized around ethnocentricity and archaic notions of gender.”
- White Nationalist Groups: Occidental Dissent, based in Eufaula, and the American Identity Movement, which operates statewide.
- Neo-Nazi Group: The National Socialist Liberation Front, which operates statewide.
- Ku Klux Klan: United Klans of America, which operates statewide.
- General hate: Nation of Islam, based in Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile; Israel United in Christ, based in Birmingham and Mobile; Israelites Saints of Christ, based in Huntsville; Great Millstone, based in Birmingham; and the Proud Boys, which operates statewide. The SPLC website defines “general hate” groups as those that “peddle a combination of well-known hate and conspiracy theories, in addition to unique bigotries that are not easily categorized.
Several of the groups seek to profit off their bigotry by selling a miscellany of hate materials from several different sectors of the white supremacist movement.”
Although the total number of hate groups went down in 2020, SPLC says that’s no indication that the amount of hate activity has decreased or that it is expected to decrease. The lower number of identifiable groups is more related to how they get their message out, the SPLC said.
“In the final year of a Trump presidency that propelled racist conspiracy theories and white nationalist ideology into the political mainstream, far-right extremists continued to migrate to online networks as the number of active hate groups declined for a second year,” according to the SPLC’s “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2020” press release. “But the levels of hate and bigotry in America have not diminished.”
SPLC points to the “proliferation of internet platforms that cater to extremists” as a major way that people “engage with potentially violent movements like QAnon and Boogaloo without being card-carrying members of a particular group. This phenomenon has blurred the boundaries of hate groups and far-right ideologies, helping coalesce a broader but more loosely affiliated movement of far-right extremists who reject the country’s democratic institutions and pluralistic society.”
Susan Corke, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, said: “The insurrection at the Capitol was the culmination of years of right-wing radicalization. Most recently, it was the product of Donald Trump’s support for and encouragement of radicalized individuals and groups to buy into conspiracy theories about a ‘stolen election’ … Trump may no longer be in the White House, but the white nationalist and extremist movement he emboldened and incited to violence is not going anywhere – and may grow more dangerous to our country.”
For those with addiction, going into and coming out of prison can be a minefield.
Many jails and prisons around the country don't provide medication treatment for opioid use disorder. Studies show that medication makes recovery more likely and reduces the risk of overdose death.
Trump struck deals with 16 drug companies. But they’re still raising prices this year
All 16 drug companies that inked deals with the Trump administration over the past few months still raised some of their prices for 2026.
This hospice has a bold new mission: saving lives
A hospice in Uganda asked itself: Can we do more than ease the pain of dying? Can we actually prevent deaths from cervical and breast cancer?
Ivey releases proposed state budgets
Lawmakers are often running in Montgomery having finished the first week of this year's legislative session. It's a week that saw the announcement of Gov. Kay Ivey's budget proposal, along with the first bills starting to make their way through the legislative process. We talk about that with Todd Stacy, host of Capital Journal on Alabama Public Television.
Canada agrees to cut tariff on Chinese EVs in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products
Breaking with the United States, Canada has agreed to cut its 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday.
What do eggs, Grok and Greenland have in common? They’re all quiz-worthy! Are you?
See if you can get a perfect score for once.
