National States' Rights Party

Foundation

Founded in 1958 in Knoxville, Tennessee, by Edward Reed Fields, a 26-year-old chiropractor and supporter of J. B. Stoner, the party was based on antisemitism, racism and opposition to racial integration with African Americans. Party officials argued for states' rights against the advance of the civil rights movement, and the organization itself established relations with the Ku Klux Klan and Minutemen. Although a white supremacist movement, its messaging was never openly neo-Nazi in the way that its successors in the American Nazi Party were.

The national chairman of the party was Stoner, who served three years in prison for bombing the Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The party produced a newspaper, The Thunderbolt, which was edited by Fields. In 1958, the party's first year, five men with links to the NSRP were indicted for their participation in the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple bombing in Atlanta.

On December 27, 1963, Edward Fields was brought to the US Secret Service's attention as a possible threat against protected individuals. This was divulged as part of the JFK file release. The FBI considered that Fields was "one step removed from being insane."

Development

During the 1960 presidential election, at a secret meeting held in a rural lodge near Dayton, Ohio, the NSRP nominated Governor of Arkansas Orval E. Faubus for President and retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral John G. Crommelin of Alabama for Vice President. Faubus, however, did not campaign on this ticket actively, and won only 0.07% of the vote (best in his native Arkansas: 6.76%). The party also ran in the 1964 presidential election, nominating John Kasper for President and J. B. Stoner for Vice President, although they won only 0.01%, i.e., less than 7,000 votes.

In 1961, Faubus denounced the NSRP for having described the Eichmann trial as a "giant propaganda hoax." Faubus said he had first-hand experience with German atrocities and that his own unit, the 35th Infantry Division, had viewed some of the evidence of Eichmann's crimes. He dismissed defenders of Adolf Eichmann as either "misguided fools or deliberate liars."

The party began to expand its operations and moved to new headquarters in Birmingham in 1960. Supporters were soon kitted out in the party uniform of white shirts, black pants and ties and armbands bearing the Thunderbolt version of the Wolfsangel. Thunderbolt itself gained a circulation of 15,000 in the late 1960s and the party became active in rallies across the United States, with events in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1966 being particularly notorious because five leading members were imprisoned for inciting riots. The Federal Bureau of Investigation targeted the NSRP under its COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE program.

International contacts

The party attempted to gain international contacts, and during the 1970s took part in annual international neo-Nazi rallies at Diksmuide in Belgium, alongside such groups as the Order of Flemish militants and the United Kingdom–based League of Saint George. Before that, the party had been close to the British extremist leader John Tyndall and his Greater Britain Movement after Tyndall failed in his attempts to forge links with George Lincoln Rockwell. Finnish Patriotic Popular Front and later National Democratic Party led by Pekka Siitoin were in cooperation with Stoner and Fields, and Siitoin published material from Thunderbolt in Finnish in his party's magazines.

Violence

Five men with connections to the NSRP perpetrated the 1958 Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple bombing in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1965, three men with NSRP ties murdered Willie Brewster, a black man, as they drove past him on Highway 202 outside Anniston, Alabama. Shortly before killing Brewster, the three had attended a NSRP rally, where Reverend Connie Lynch of California decried the desegregation of Anniston High School and urged members to whatever it took to stop desegregation."If it takes killing to get the Negroes out of the white man's streets and to protect our constitutional rights, I say, yes, kill them."In 1964, American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell informed the FBI that Fields had told him that a group of right-wing former U.S. military officers, allegedly including Crommelin, Pedro del Valle, and William Potter Gale, were conspiring to overthrow the federal government. Fields opposed the plot and told Rockwell that he was doing everything he could to dissuade those involved. However, Rockwell said he had no choice but to report the conspiracy, fearing that it would cause irreparable damage to the far-right cause in the United States.

Presidential tickets

Decline

The party's influence declined in the 1970s, as Fields began to devote more of his energies to the Ku Klux Klan. As a result, in April 1976, U.S. Attorney General Edward H. Levi concluded an FBI investigation into the group after it was decided that they posed no threat.

The NSRP began its terminal decline when Stoner was convicted for a bombing in 1980. Without his leadership, the party descended into factionalism, and in August 1983, Fields was expelled for spending too much time in the Klan. Jerry Ray (the brother of James Earl Ray) took over leadership; however, Fields maintained his control of The Thunderbolt. Without its two central figures, the NSRP fell apart, and by 1987, it had ceased to exist.

Similar groups

The group had no specific connection to the less extreme, southern conservative States' Rights Democratic Party, although it did share some of its views. Similarly, the party had no direct connection to the group of the same name set up in June 2005 in Philadelphia, Mississippi, after the conviction of Edgar Ray Killen for his role in three 1964 murders (although this group consciously picked the name to evoke Stoner's defunct movement).

References

Works cited

References

1. ''[[The Times]]'', June 21, 1963, ''250 Arrested In U.S. Racial Riots''
2. [http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/national_states_rights_party.htm 'National States' Rights Party'] from the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI)
3. (2006). "Police Detectives in History, 1750-1950". Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
4. [[Alton Hornsby Jr.]]. (23 August 2011). "Black America: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia". ABC-CLIO.
5. Paul Hainsworth. (6 October 2016). "Politics of the Extreme Right: From the Margins to the Mainstream". Bloomsbury Publishing.
6. [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/29/national/29stoner.html J. B. Stoner, 81, Fervent Racist and Benchmark for Extremism, Dies]
7. link. (2007-10-17 from [[Anti-Defamation League]])
8. [http://southernspaces.org/2009/counterblast-how-atlanta-temple-bombing-strengthened-civil-rights-cause Webb, Clive. "Counterblast: How the Atlanta Temple Bombing Strengthened the Civil Rights Cause," ''Southern Spaces'' 22 June 2009]
9. Kubecka, Chris. (November 3, 2017). "Great little synopsis from the @FBI from the JFK release. The founder of the hate group NSRP Edward Fields "1step removed from being insane" https://t.co/h8PuGL6jOm".
10. ''[[Dayton Daily News]]'', March 20, 1960, ''Faubus Named Presidential Candidate by States Rights''
11. [http://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=4200 Our Campaigns - Candidate - Orval E. Faubus]
12. [http://www.ourcampaigns.com/PartyDetail.html?PartyID=1871 Our Campaigns - Political Party - National States' Rights (NSR)]
13. "Arkansas Governor Rebukes Publication for Terming Eichmann Trial 'hoax'".
14. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120910071729/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm Groups targeted by COINTELPRO]
15. [[Ray Hill (British activist). Ray Hill]] & Andrew Bell, ''The Other Face of Terror'', London: Grafton, 1988, pp. 165-166
16. Richard Thurlow, ''Fascism in Britain A History, 1918-1985'', Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987, p. 269
17. Nordling, Iiro: Pekka Siitoinista Jussi Halla-ahoon: Antikommunismista ja natsismista maahanmuuttokriittisyyteen. 2014. {{ISBN. 978-1-311699-18-3
18. Pohjola, Mike (toim.): Mitä Pekka Siitoin tarkoittaa? Savukeidas, 2015. ISBN 978-952-268-155-3 pp.119
19. Keronen, Jiri: Pekka Siitoin teoriassa ja käytännössä. Helsinki: Kiuas Kustannus, 2020. ISBN 978-952-7197-21-9, pp.29, 41-42
20. (28 October 2018). "A Brief History of Anti-Semitic Violence in America". The Atlantic.
21. (2023-07-18). "1965: White men kill foundry worker Willie Brewster in Alabama Mississippi Today".
22. Federal Bureau of Investigation. "National States Rights Party".
23. The ticket received nearly 7% in Arkansas, Faubus' home state.
24. link. (2007-09-13 from [[Anti-Defamation League]])