Category: Active Club

This is Part II of a two-part article. For Part I, click here.

Update, June 2025: The young neo-Nazi “Huntwa” discussed below is David Isaac Hamilton. See our article here.

Contents (Part II)

• North Carolina Split
• Another Recruit for the Georgia Chapter
• North Carolina Leadership Reshuffle
• Tyler Dykes’ Very Bad Saint Patrick’s Day
• Two More Georgia SSAC Associates
• SSAC Relations with Other Groups
• (A) Patriot Front
• (B) Proud Boys
• (C) White Lives Matter
• Recap / Conclusion

White Nationalists Exposed in Part II (in Order of Appearance)

• Eric Hissiger (SSAC member, North Carolina)
• Benjamin Machell-Dennis (former SSAC member, North Carolina)
• Richard Nance (former SSAC member, North Carolina)
• Tyler Dykes (SSAC member, South Carolina but in Georgia group)
• Ryan Huffstickler (North Carolina state leader for SSAC)
• Robert Joshua Hodges (SSAC associate, Georgia)
• Trey Dixon (SSAC associate, Georgia)

North Carolina Split

On the same day that the Georgia chapter held its vetting and Jeffersonville banner drop, SSAC members from North Carolina and South Carolina gathered at a member’s house for a “fight night” and meeting. 

This February 18th event occurred at the home of cableman Eric Wolfgang Patrick Hissiger (born 1992) in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina. Hissiger went by the name “Freddie Rudolph” in the SSAC chat. A now-deleted Twitter account for “Freddie Rudolph” suggests that Hissiger had earlier been a supporter of the racist and antisemitic National Justice Party. Hissiger may have also been involved with Patriot Front in the past. On February 17th, “Freddie Rudolph” posted a picture to SSAC’s vetted chat of two masked figures holding a “White Pride Worldwide” flag, next to memorial graffiti for someone considered a martyr by the racist far-right. Hissiger/“Rudolph” commented: “[Patriot Front leader] Thomas [Rousseau] gave me and my cousin a boat load of shit for this one”.

Chatter in the SSAC vetted Telegram chat suggests that Hissiger/“Freddie” received a visit from the Federal Bureau of Investigation last year, prior to joining SSAC. The reason for this FBI attention is unclear.

Hissiger works in telecommunications, likely for Spectrum. On February 17, 2023, Hissiger shared customer information to SSAC’s vetted chat, accompanied by a racist comment.

Two other individuals involved in SSAC played crucial roles at the February 18th Carolinas meet-up and its immediate aftermath. Benjamin Frederick Machell-Dennis (born 2000) of Coats, North Carolina, went by the name “VolksVerhetzer” on Telegram and was one of the administrators for SSAC’s general chat. He has been an ideological white supremacist for some time—in 2015, he first posted to the notorious Stormfront forum, where he described himself as a “Radical National Socialist German youth” living in the United States. 

Machell-Dennis joined other white power organizations before SSAC. He was at least briefly involved with Patriot Front, writing to SSAC’s general chat on January 29th that he “already did the vetting [for Patriot Front] once”. On February 9, he commented to this same chat that: “I […] found and joined em [Patriot Front] through 4chan” (This post was from the channel administrative account, but had the letters “VV” by it, indicating that it came from Machell-Dennis/”VolksVerhetzer.”) Machell-Dennis also stated on January 31 that he had been involved with The Männerbund—an explicitly white nationalist fraternal group—“until a little while ago”.

Machell-Dennis is currently a student at Campbell University’s College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences where he is pursuing a graduate degree. Perhaps relatedly, the racist “White Lives Matter” (WLM) project in North Carolina posted in early September 2022 about leaving propaganda stickers on the Campbell University campus. Machell-Dennis was at least briefly part of WLM – North Carolina’s chat on Telegram. According to LinkedIn, Machell-Dennis is also a pharmacy intern at CVS in Erwin, North Carolina.

Eric Hissiger and Benjamin Machell-Dennis are close with a third person, Richard Anthony Nance (born 1983), whose Lillington, North Carolina home is just a five-minute drive from Machell-Dennis. Nance was vetted into Southern Sons Active Club on February 7 this year, using his actual first name of Richard within the group.

Just before Nance joined SSAC, Hissiger and Machell-Dennis strongly vouched for him. Hissiger claimed that Nance is the “Most serious mother fucker you’ll ever meet [… He] lives and breaths [sic] national socialism”. Machell-Dennis described Nance as someone “that both freddie [Eric Hissiger] and I trust with our lives”. Hissiger also stated that Nance is involved with something called “ethno county,” an informal effort to move white supremacists into Harnett County, North Carolina, where the three operate.

Richard Nance is the head of Wyatt-Wynn LLC, a “veteran-owned, family operated” land care business in central North Carolina. Nance’s wife, Kimberly Annmarie Nance (née Ellis, born 1990) is also an obvious white supremacist. Her Venmo electronic payments account ends with “1488,” white supremacist code for the “14 words” slogan plus “88,” alphanumeric code for H.H. or “Heil Hitler.” Kimberly Nance also has a tattoo on her wrist which reads “Hope” when viewed from one direction, and “Adolf” (presumably for Adolf Hitler) when read from the other. 

Richard Nance claimed to SSAC that he was in the US Marine Corps for over a decade, writing to SSAC’s vetted chat on February 11th that he had been a Marine from “2001 until after Marjah”. He claimed to have been part of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines and to have been a Primary Marksmanship Instructor for two years. Nance also boasted that he “killed a n[****]r in Djibouti”, presumably while in the Marines (vetted chat comment from February 13, 2023.)

Nance used his combat experience as a way of gaining prestige within SSAC, although he was still a newcomer to the club and had no official title. For example, on February 17^th, he stressed to the group’s vetted chat that they should follow his advice, because “I fought real guerrillas for 12 years”. On the same evening, he stated that he was a Gracie Brazilian Jiu Jitsu brown belt, another attempt to establish himself in the group’s pecking order. 

Richard Nance made these comments on the eve of SSAC’s meeting at Eric Hissiger’s Fuquay-Varina home. Nance argued strenuously over Telegram with club leader Trent Pugh that SSAC should abandon its occasional use of uniforms, as Nance believed that without any uniform members could blend in better and avoid state attention. In a comment posted after midnight, Nance claimed to have “shut […] down” a Drag Queen Story Hour event “by my lonesome in American Eagle jeans and Vans”, presumably through intimidation or sabotage.

Disagreements over the club’s direction and status within it came to a head at the February 18 Carolinas “fight night.” As well as the Harnett County, North Carolina trio, other members who attended included club leader Trent Pugh; club “patch maker” Peter Lloyd Curry, Jr.; currently unidentified crew leader “Founding Stock” from the Charleston, South Carolina area; and at least two other club members, going by the names “Willington” and “Robert Douglas” respectively. Richard Nance appears to have arrived late when people were already socializing. Nance’s sixteen-year-old son was also present, although it is unclear whether he arrived with his father or had been there since earlier. Weeks after the event, SSAC member “Robert Douglas” explained the circumstances leading to police arresting him for Driving While Impaired while on his way home from the “fight night” gathering: “I was ready to go. Then Richard showed up. And I had 4 more beers. My fault.” (Comment from March 10, 2023.)

Upon arriving at the February gathering, Richard Nance told the assembled white supremacists about a secret group that he, his sixteen-year-old son, and his “ethno county” companions were involved with, which focuses on militant tactics. Trent Pugh summarized to SSAC’s vetted chat the following afternoon:

“Richard didnt [sic] like how we did things so when he arrived he spent like 40 mins talking about it and how things should be run to get the most effect […] He talked about the group they were in, a direct action thing that isnt [sic] public […] and it was just weird idk [I don’t know] if I should talk about that part”

Another member in SSAC’s vetted channel, Ryan Huffstickler of Wilmington, North Carolina (“Keyser Soze” in SSAC’s vetted channel), responded to Pugh’s summary and asked for clarification about what sort of “direct action” Nance had proposed. Supporting Pugh’s decision not to type out the details in the Telegram group, Peter Curry who was also there for Nance’s talk, replied: “use your imagination and that’s what he [Nance] meant”. Curry later added that Nance claimed he could “command guys to come to anyone [sic] house he wants to murder you”.

Almost three weeks after the gathering, on March 10, 2023, Nance was mentioned again in SSAC’s vetted chat. This time, Peter Curry provided  more details about Nance claims at the Carolinas “fight night,” writing that “He [Nance] claimed he kill [sic] 8 pedos […] And mentioned the power stations”.

“The power stations” is a reference to attacks on two power substations in Moore County, North Carolina, in December which knocked out power to tens of thousands of residents. Although they are not the only potential culprits, accelerationist neo-Nazis later celebrated these attacks—partially out of real sympathy, and partially to gain publicity for their groups and projects. Harnett County, where Richard Nance and his “ethno county” associates live, borders Moore County.

After Nance delivered his talk about what he was involved with and his criticisms of how SSAC operated, he summoned his sixteen-year-old son to the kitchen where Trent Pugh had been listening. Nance’s son was trained to attack when his father said a code word. According to Pugh, Nance said the code word—“ketchup”—and Nance’s son punched Pugh on the side of the face. Pugh did not fight back and eventually departed, taking the SSAC club patches which had been left on a counter, and failing to say goodbye to Nance’s allies Hissiger and Machell-Dennis.

Later on the night of February 18th, Richard Nance left the SSAC vetted chat, sensing that he was about to be kicked out over his performance that evening as well as his differences with Pugh over which direction the club should take. After midnight, Benjamin Machell-Dennis expressed upset that Nance had seemingly been forced out of the club. Later that morning, Trent Pugh wrote that he is “not here to do the shit Richard does” and invited Machell-Dennis and Hissiger to clarify whether they wished to remain in the club. Machell-Dennis then criticized Pugh for absorbing a punch without fighting back, for taking the club patches meant for the Harnett County members, and for departing Hissiger’s home without saying goodbye. In response, Pugh removed Machell-Dennis and Hissiger from the club’s vetted communication channel, in effect expelling them from the club.

When trading messages with our infiltrator, Pugh provided further details on Nance and the split. According to Pugh, Nance not only “spent over a decade in the middle east” with the Marines but “has been to prison” and “has a lot of tattoos [… that] you earn”, presumably for acts of violence. Pugh also disclosed that “his [Nance’s] kid is branded” and that they are “in a group that brands people”, referring to the Harnett County cell. Days later, Pugh told our infiltrator that “they [Richard’s group] threatened to kill me if I went to Raleigh” due to remaining bad feelings from the split. David Fair was later able to smooth things over and get the Harnett County group to retract that threat.

Without further information, it is important to be skeptical about the claims made by Richard Nance, and also those made about him by other SSAC members. According to Peter Curry’s comments on Telegram, Nance claimed to have killed people, seemingly outside of his time in the Marines. Also according to Curry: at the February SSAC gathering, Nance mentioned the December power substation attacks in Moore County, which borders Harnett. However, it is unclear whether Nance claimed responsibility for the attacks, suggested he knew who was behind them, referenced them as the sort of action that was possible, or just praised them. Further, Peter Curry stated to SSAC’s vetted chat that “Freddie [Eric Hissiger] told me it was bullshit”—presumably about Nance’s power substations loose talk. Nance’s alleged mention of killing “pedos,” may have also been to impress his audience and may not be true. 

However, even if we are cautious about all these claims, the situation is still concerning. If Richard Nance’s brags were mostly fantasies, they still indicate what he thinks about and aspires to, and what he expects his close associates to value. Both Eric Hissiger and Ben Machell-Davis demonstrated loyalty to Nance during the SSAC split and will likely continue to follow him. The formation of a secret militant group is concerning even if it is just at the planning or aspirational stage. We hope that Harnett County residents will circulate this information and watch out for Hissiger, Machell-Davis, and Nance, especially given Nance’s interest in violence for his cause.

On April 19, with Trent Pugh still vanished, David Fair allowed Eric Hissiger to rejoin SSAC.

Another Recruit for the Georgia Chapter

On February 25th, a new member, “Nocturnal Wolf,” joined SSAC’s Georgia chapter after having gone through vetting. That same day, Robert Knobel’s close associate Richard Paul Péwé, III also officially joined the Georgia chapter.

“Nocturnal Wolf” is Tyler Bradley Dykes (born 1998) of Bluffton, South Carolina. Last year, anti-fascist researchers exposed Dykes as a participant in 2017’s bloody “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia (as well as the tiny “Unite the Right 2” in Washington, DC, 2018). Dykes is a former Marine who until recently ran Technology King of the Lowcountry, a computer and cyber-security business. Dykes joined the Georgia SSAC group because the proximity of his home to Savannah, Georgia. 

Tyler Dykes presented himself as an expert in operational security to SSAC. We were easily able to identify “Nocturnal Wolf” as Dykes after he posted an old, insufficiently redacted advertisement for his cyber-security business to SSAC’s vetted chat on March 12, 2023.

North Carolina Leadership Reshuffle

While the North Carolina split only cost Southern Sons Active Club three members, it nevertheless left a hole in their presence in that state. It also left the group with fewer options about who could step into leadership roles, if their current state leader stepped down. That is just what happened. On March 2nd, SSAC’s North Carolina state leader who went by the alias of “E” left the club. “E” is another SSAC member who has passed through the ranks of Patriot Front. “E” has referenced being at Patriot Front’s catastrophic mobilization in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2021, where residents confronted, attacked, and chased Patriot Front members. When leaving Southern Sons Active Club, “E” simply wrote that he had “too much going on, some of which I can’t elaborate on.”

The North Carolina state leader role went to Ryan James Huffstickler (born 1985). Huffstickler lives in Wilmington, North Carolina and goes by the alias “Keyser Soze” within SSAC. Huffstickler claims to be a former chapter president for the Proud Boys, who once led a “Tidewater” chapter (vetted chat comment, February 8, 2023). He states that he left the Proud Boys approximately four years ago (general chat comment, March 16, 2023) and dislikes many of the current Proud Boys in North Carolina, claiming that they “would rather let their wives fuck a n[****]r than be viewed as racist” (vetted chat comment, February 17, 2023). 

On February 17, 2023, Huffstickler described Southern Sons as a “group of dudes I’ve barely met but a few of so far”. Less than two weeks later, SSAC elevated him to state leader for the group. In March, he also became an administrator on SSAC’s general Telegram chat.

On LinkedIn, Huffstickler claims to be a self-employed contractor. He has told SSAC’s vetted Telegram channel that: “I’m a project manager for a multi million dollar account. I don’t worry if I get doxxed. I talk to the top 2 guys in the company often” (comment from February 28, 2023). If you have information about the company which Huffstickler believes would be fine with an active white nationalist as its project manager, please let us know.

Tyler Dykes’ Very Bad Saint Patrick’s Day

Georgia’s club planned to place banners in or near Savannah for Saint Patrick’s Day. Savannah’s Saint Patrick’s Day parade is one of the largest in America. By placing banners on that day, the Georgia group aimed to take advantage of the increased tourist population in the city and to opportunistically target overpasses at a time they believed police would focus on the downtown event. Nothing went according to SSAC’s plan.

Jasper Collins, Tyler Dykes, and club co-leader David Fair, who traveled from South Carolina, attempted the banner drops near Savannah. According to SSAC chats, participants planned to meet up in Hardeeville, South Carolina (about 25 minutes from Savannah) in the evening before traveling to Savannah with the intention of placing banners. Georgia leader Robert Knobel had also wished to participate in the action, but at some point the others told him—either in person or in a voice chat—to “rest up get better” from an illness. He spent that evening “zonked out on benadryl” instead.

Due to a series of humiliating events, the group did not drop a single banner. Near one of the overpasses they had selected for a banner, Dykes walked back along a trail to his car to grab tools. According to Dykes, a man with three pit bulls was walking the other way along this trail. At 5:37PM, Dykes reported to SSAC: “So I just got mauled by 3 pit bulls […] Gerard [Jasper Collins] is taking me to the hospital” so he could have his wounds cleaned and receive a precautionary rabies shot.

The others still hoped to drop banners after getting Dykes to the hospital. However, they soon realized that cops were staged near the overpasses they had selected for banner drops—presumably as part of the Saint Patrick’s Day mobilization. Further, the tools for hoisting the banners had been left in Dykes’ vehicle.

The night got even worse for Dykes. Having left the hospital, at 8:24PM he messaged the vetted chat: “I’m being arrested by Virginia […] Nuke my account”. Dykes was held in Jasper County, South Carolina jail, listed as a “fugitive from justice.” We eventually learned the underlying charge behind Dykes’ arrest: he is facing a felony charge in Virginia for his participation in August 2017’s torch-lit racist march, the night before “Unite the Right” in Charlottesville. On April 14, Dykes finally arrived at Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail. 

Two More Georgia SSAC Associates

Dykes’ arrest caused SSAC to suspect that they were under intense monitoring from the state. Jasper Collins was particularly disturbed by the arrest, and deleted his Telegram account as “Gerard,” reappearing in SSAC with a new account under the name “Roland Haterade.” Georgia SSAC members abandoned their Telegram chat as a precaution and created a new one. 

When Robert Knobel re-created the “vetted” chat for Georgia, he added two new members. These two new Georgia “vetted” participants are close associates of Knobel. Due to their pre-existing friendships, they were fast-tracked as associates within Knobel’s Georgia crew. However, the two have not yet been added to the multi-state SSAC “vetted” chat, suggesting that they are not yet official prospects. (Knobel’s close friend Richard Péwé is also not in the multi-state “vetted” chat, only Georgia channels.)

Robert Joshua Colgate Hodges (born 1995) of Savannah goes by the name “Turbo Sperg” (and previously “Spew”) online. Hodges joined SSAC’s broader public chat for Georgia on February 25, the same day that the Georgia chapter admitted Richard Paul Péwé and Tyler Dykes as crew members. Robert Knobel introduced Hodges/“Turbo Sperg” to the rest of the chat as “one of my guys from way back [… who is] trying to decide [whether] to be a PF [Patriot Front] or SSAC Georgia [member].” Because of their history together, Knobel added Hodges to the Georgia “vetted” chat when it was re-created after the Saint Patrick’s Day mess.

Hodges appears in the February 2022 video circulated by Knobel’s pre-SSAC project, the “FL GA Border Waffen,” showing masked men preparing and distributing Goyim Defense League propaganda in coastal Georgia. Hodges also maintains a tiny personal Telegram channel which he uses to share his rants, as well as racist, antisemitic, and pro-Hitler propaganda.

Robert Joshua Hodges currently works as a store manager for XCell Wireless Repairs at Tanger Outlets Savannah in Pooler. (In one of his recorded Telegram rants, Hodges complains about his “P[*]ki boss”.) Last year, he also started his own repair company, Turbo Wireless. In addition to his secret life as a racist and antisemitic organizer, Hodges is known in the local gaming community, since he is a founder of the Savannah Tekken group.

The second new person added to Georgia  SSAC’s “vetted channel” was James Edward “Trey” Dixon, III (born 1977) of Register, Georgia. Dixon goes by the alias “Waffen Jennings” on Telegram. Dixon is every bit as much a white supremacist as the rest of SSAC, joking to the Georgia chat that “If I had 2 mixed kids and a Jew wife, I’d be in prison for triple murder.” He is old friends with Robert Knobel as well as Richard Péwé. Dixon’s history with Knobel and Péwé may be through the Proud Boys, since both Knobel and Péwé participated in that group before moving to more explicit white nationalism and antisemitism. In a 2021 video shared on TikTok, Trey Dixon wore a black cap with yellow laurels and a skull—apparent Proud Boys iconography—suggesting he may also have a past with that group. Professionally, Dixon operates a plumbing company, Dixon Plumbing, LLC, in Register, Georgia. 

SSAC Relations with Other Groups

Over the course of our infiltration, three groups came up time and again in relation to SSAC. They are: Patriot Front, the Proud Boys, and White Lives Matter.

In this section, we discuss SSAC’s ties to each of these three groups in greater detail. However, it is important to remember that SSAC’s ties go beyond these three formations. For example, SSAC leader David Fair recently mentioned to SSAC’s “vetted” chat that a joint action by SSAC, the antisemitic Goyim Defense League, and NatSoc Florida is allegedly in the works (comment from April 10, 2023). While this event is currently in the planning stages and does not yet even have a solid date set, it is another example of SSAC’s networking and common action with far-right and white supremacist groups active in our region.

(A) Patriot Front

Several past members of Patriot Front are now active with Southern Sons. There is also evidence of direct cooperation between SSAC and Patriot Front, with SSAC mobilizing to support an upcoming Patriot Front event.

SSAC co-leader/co-founder David Fair was previously active in Patriot Front, where he went by the alias “Aaron SC.” We have also discussed that Georgia member Jasper Collins was involved with Patriot Front in Indiana as “Gerard IN.” Now-departed North Carolina member Benjamin Machell-Dennis claimed to have joined Patriot Front at least briefly, and his close associate Eric Hissiger may have also been involved. The former North Carolina state leader for SSAC, “E,” also has a history with the organization. A number of current Patriot Front members participate in SSAC’s general Telegram chat.

Southern Sons Active Club also directly collaborates with Patriot Front. In December, SSAC posted on its announcements channel that participants had met up in Columbia, South Carolina with a Patriot Front member, and they had placed stickers together.

More importantly, David Fair recently informed SSAC’s vetted chat that Patriot Front would be holding a national event on the weekend of May 12-14, and “we [SSAC] are invited” to participate (message of March 6, 2023). In another effort to get an SSAC contingent together for Patriot Front’s upcoming event, on March 13, Fair revealed that the event would be in the “Southern Mid Atlantic [region …] So like Virginia, Maryland, or other surrounding states.” Patriot Front has rallied in the Washington, DC area several times before. The fact that David Fair received rally information—usually closely guarded by Patriot Front—and was invited to bring along a contingent from his organization, shows that Patriot Front consider the club to be close and trusted allies.

In early April, a new potential member applied to join SSAC Georgia and went through voice vetting. “Huntwa N’wah” is nineteen years old and was raised in rural Georgia. “Huntwa” seemingly lives nearer to Savannah than to Atlanta, since Knobel and Collins volunteered to do his face-to-face vetting. (Update, June 2025: “Huntwa” has been identified as David Isaac Hamilton. See our article and corrections here.) According to “Huntwa’s” comments in the Church of Aryanity group on Telegram, “Huntwa” was a “new member” of Patriot Front as of this March (comment from March 7, 2023). “Huntwa” told the Georgia SSAC vetting chat that he is involved with the Church of Aryanity, a neo-Nazi cult, and attended a “Church” gathering where he received a prominent swastika tattoo on his chest. Also in attendance at the same Church of Aryanity gathering was Ian Michael Elliott, a fellow Patriot Front member and martial arts enthusiast.

(B) Proud Boys

SSAC also overlaps with the subset of Proud Boys that have embraced neo-Nazism. Both Georgia SSAC state leader Robert Knobel, II and current North Carolina state leader Ryan Huffstickler are former members of the Proud Boys. Knobel claims that he was “kicked […] out” of the Proud Boys in Georgia “for being racist” (February 17, 2023 comment as administrator “CB,” SSAC general chat). This should be taken with more than a pinch of salt, since Georgia Proud Boys cooperated and had overlapping membership with white nationalist groups in the past. Knobel’s neo-Nazism may have simply been too flagrant for the Proud Boys. Knobel’s close associate and SSAC Georgia member, Richard Paul Péwé, III also has a history with the Proud Boys. 

SSAC members loathe Proud Boys groups that claim to be non-racist but are happy to work with other Proud Boys chapters. Southern Sons’ first public demonstration was in Florence, South Carolina, where a handful of SSAC members joined with “local Proud Boy chapters” in attempted intimidation of a drag brunch event on September 18, 2022. 

The “patch maker” for SSAC, Peter Lloyd Curry, Jr. in North Carolina, was also heavily involved with the Proud Boys. Curry claims he presently only “keep[s] in contact with […] wignat [white nationalists with a penchant for violent neo-Nazi rhetoric] P[roud ]B[oy]s” (SSAC vetted chat comment, February 28. 2023). However, Curry has been much more networked with regional Proud Boys in the past. Curry claims that on St. Patrick’s Day, 2022, he was with “every single one” of the revived Georgia Proud Boys, walking around Savannah and drinking (vetted chat comment, March 14, 2023).

(C) White Lives Matter

Southern Sons Active Club began as an outgrowth of White Lives Matter in South Carolina (WLM – SC). This is obvious if one compares the Telegram announcement channels for SSAC and WLM – SC. The very first post which SSAC made on its announcement channel shows two figures standing next to WLM – SC graffiti. During the early months of SSAC, photos used on the WLM – SC Telegram channel and labeled as WLM activity, were also posted on SSAC’s announcement channel and portrayed as Active Club efforts. According to his comments in SSAC vetted chat (February 18, 2023), David Fair joined WLM – SC chapter after his time in Patriot Front. Fair then became a leader for WLM – SC until “Nate [Trent Pugh] brought up the idea of Southern Sons”. Trent Pugh was also highly active in WLM during mid-2022, referring to “my chapter” in comments to a different Telegram channel. On February 7 this year, Trent Pugh confirmed to SSAC’s chat that “We [SSAC] came from WLM”. With its key activists now doing SSAC, WLM – SC is largely dormant. David Fair however continues as the administrator for WLM’s group in South Carolina.

Interestingly, Fair and Pugh appear to have been in contact with the Proud Boys even before SSAC’s founding, when they were primarily operating as White Lives Matter. A post to WLM – SC’s Telegram channel on July 23, 2022 showed two “WLM activists”—Fair and Pugh—joining with Proud Boys in Florence, South Carolina, to harass pro-choice demonstrators. SSAC’s Telegram channel launched days later, on July 27. As we have documented, Fair and Pugh joined with Proud Boys again in September, this time for SSAC/Proud Boys’ attempted intimidation of a “drag  brunch” in Florence.

Two other ties to WLM are relevant. We already noted that former SSAC member, Benjamin Machell-Dennis, studies at Campbell University in North Carolina, where WLM propaganda appeared last year. This March, Devin Brosnahan, who led White Lives Matter in Georgia, joined the Telegram chat for SSAC in our state under his alias “Levi Savage,” although he is not an official SSAC member. Brosnahan has a longer history with SSAC’s Georgia leader, Robert Knobel. SSAC co-founder/co-leader David Fair also goes back with  Brosnahan, since they are both WLM administrators for their respective states.

Recap / Conclusion

Over our three-month infiltration of Southern Sons Active Club, we gathered copious documentation on the club and its members. This has allowed us to identify twelve members of the club, two former members, as well as a Georgia militant in the “Revolutionary White Brotherhood” (formerly “Blood and Soil Crew”), a neo-Nazi youth group with close ties to SSAC. We learned that this Revolutionary White Brotherhood member as well as SSAC leaders had social and political ties to a neo-Nazi arrested in January for his role in assisting a bank robbery plot.

During our infiltration, a cluster of white supremacists in North Carolina was half-expelled, half-broke from SSAC after they failed to steer the club in the direction of underground “direct action.” Even though this effort failed, it demonstrates how Active Clubs are currently attracting the most-violence prone elements within the white power underground. One member of the North Carolina cell, Eric Hissiger, was re-admitted to SSAC on April 19th.

We also showed how SSAC is highly networked with other far-right groups, in particular Patriot Front, Nazified elements within the Proud Boys, and White Lives Matter. SSAC members are currently planning to participate alongside Patriot Front in an upcoming national event, May 12-14 in the “Southern Mid Atlantic” region.

SSAC has had limited success in its actions and seems most interested in stickering and banner drops. However, the club represents a central node in neo-Nazi organizing in the Carolinas and Georgia. Its relationships with violence-ready neo-Nazis cause particular concern—SSAC not only channels young people into the racist movement, but then connects them with more experienced neo-Nazi activists. 

The materials we gathered during our SSAC infiltration will help us and other regional anti-fascists for quite some time. However, they will be most effective when combined with the knowledge of other community members and researchers. If you have further information on the white supremacists mentioned in this article, please reach out to us.

Thanks to Asheville Anti-Racism and Utah Antifascists for help with research.

Summary: In January, we began infiltrating the Southern Sons Active Club (SSAC), a racist group operating in the Carolinas and in Georgia that is part of the broader “Active Club” network. With this two-part report, we identify twelve SSAC members and two former members. We also discuss a Georgia participant in the “Revolutionary White Brotherhood” (formerly “Blood and Soil Crew”), a regional neo-Nazi youth group with close ties to SSAC. We document SSAC’s ties to a white supremacist now facing charges for his part in a bank robbery conspiracy. In another instance of the club attracting violence-prone neo-Nazis, we discuss an underground cell in North Carolina dedicated to “direct action” whose members were previously in SSAC. Finally, we detail the club’s ties to other far-right projects operating regionally. SSAC plans to send a contingent to an upcoming national event by Patriot Front, May 12-14 in the southern Mid-Atlantic region.

This is Part I of a two-part article. For Part II, click here.

Contents (Part I)

• Introduction: The “Active Club” Model
• Our Infiltration Begins
• SSAC’s Structure
• Georgia SSAC Chapter: Early Identifications
• Continued Monitoring: Georgia and South Carolina
• SSAC Relationship to “Blood and Soil Crew” / “Revolutionary White Brotherhood”
• Ties to Failed Bank Robbery Plot
• In-Person Vetting, New Member “Panzer 9,” and Jeffersonville, Georgia Banner Drop

White Nationalists Exposed in Part I (in Order of Appearance)

• Trent Pugh (SSAC leader, South Carolina)
• David Fair (SSAC leader, South Carolina)
• Robert Knobel, II (Georgia state leader for SSAC)
• Jasper Collins (SSAC member, Georgia)
• Richard Péwé (SSAC member, Georgia)
• Peter Curry, Jr. (SSAC member and “Patch Maker,” South Carolina)
• A.A. (Georgia teenager in “Revolutionary White Brotherhood”)
• Anthony Harden, Jr. (SSAC member, Georgia)

Introduction: The “Active Club” Model

Earlier this year, the white nationalist “Southern Sons Active Club” (SSAC) admitted a new member. Unknown to SSAC, this member was infiltrating on behalf of Atlanta Antifascists. Once inside the group, our mole continually archived SSAC’s electronic chats, met with members while recording both video and audio, and helped identify members in Georgia and the Carolinas.

“Southern Sons Active Club” is part of the larger “Active Club” network founded by fascist organizer Robert Rundo and his close associates. Rundo started making a name for himself in the white power movement after he co-founded the “Rise Above Movement” (RAM) street-fighting gang in late 2016 or early 2017. RAM was initially named “DIY Division.” Members of the group, which is modeled on European far-right soccer hooliganism and Identitarianism, quickly gained a reputation for their targeted violence up and down California, especially against leftists and anti-racist protesters. As well as brawling at rallies in California, RAM members traveled for 2017’s bloody Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, with three RAM members eventually receiving prison sentences for conspiracy to riot. (A fourth member pleaded guilty but avoided prison time.)

Another prosecution against RAM followed later in 2018, with the state alleging that RAM members violated and conspired to violate the federal rioting statute. This time, Rundo was among those targeted by the prosecution. Rundo fled the country but was arrested and extradited. The initial prosecution was dropped over First Amendment concerns, but three leaders, Rundo included, were re-indicted in January 2023 on similar charges. In the gap between the first prosecution being dropped and this year’s re-indictment, Rundo slipped away to Europe—researchers tracked him to locations such as Serbia and more recently Bulgaria. Rundo remained an active white nationalist organizer and figurehead from abroad, including his founding of the “Active Club” movement. He was arrested in Romania at the request of US authorities at the end of March 2023. 

The Active Club (AC) network expands upon the model created by RAM. Rundo initiated the network in December 2020, and further pushed the concept by creating a podcast of the same name in January 2021. The AC network is purposefully decentralized, consisting of state-level and regional groups whose participants train and spread propaganda together. The decentralized nature of this network creates built-in plausible deniability for Rundo’s inner circle, since they know not to directly call for ACs to engage in violence. The various groups in the AC network nominally operate independently. Active Club leaders are nevertheless eager to please Rundo and Rundo’s closest associates. Before his recent arrest, a secret chat connected Rundo to Active Club leaders. Due to RAM’s reputation, Active Clubs attract white supremacists who are particularly drawn toward violence. We will later provide examples of this from Southern Sons Active Club.

Active Clubs served as a dedicated consumer base for Rundo. The “Will2Rise” shop operated by Rundo’s close associates sells t-shirts, stickers, and other merchandise—with some profits presumably funding Rundo’s pre-arrest traipsing around Europe. The Active Club network also generates free footage and images then used by an associated media project, “Media2Rise.” Will2Rise merchandise and stickers feature prominently on Active Club announcement channels. Propaganda, recruitment, and merchandising all blend together, with Rundo and his inner circle reaping the benefit. Now that Rundo is being extradited to the US, Active Clubs are at the center of a “Free Rundo” campaign.

Last year, Rundo’s propaganda inspired members of White Lives Matter (WLM) in South Carolina to form their own Active Club, “Southern Sons Active Club.” SSAC quickly became a higher priority for these organizers than WLM. Through churning out materials on Telegram, building a name, and networking with regional fascists, in less than half a year SSAC expanded to include members in Georgia and North Carolina. SSAC leaders claim that they are only interested in dedicated members, but they were so eager to build their ranks that our infiltration was easy.

Our Infiltration Begins

Our infiltration into Southern Sons ended up being more productive than we could have imagined, but it began by accident. We had been keeping tabs on SSAC for months, occasionally checking its Telegram channel. In mid-January, we began paying closer attention to the group for two reasons. First, after state troopers shot and killed eco-defender Manuel Esteban Páez Terán (“Tortuguita”), fascist channels such as SSAC often posted about the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement. It was important for us to monitor these communications to assess any threats. Second, comments in the SSAC channel indicated that some members were coming into Atlanta for a punk show on Saturday, 21 January 2023. We wished to know more about this visit, especially because the SSAC members claimed to be meeting up with someone from the racist American Defense Skinheads at the event. Also scheduled to attend the show was Justin Lamar Burger of Douglasville, Georgia, a racist who we exposed years ago and who is now the regional leader of the bonehead “Clockwork Crew.”

Instead of passively monitoring the situation, one of our members accidentally hit the “Join Channel” button for SSAC on Telegram and was added to the group’s discussion channel. We played this off as though our account was interested in joining the racist club and scheduled a voice interview.

The night before the Atlanta show, our infiltrator did a voice vetting with SSAC leader “Nate” from South Carolina. The Georgia leader for SSAC, “Chad Base,” was unavailable for some reason and was not present on the call. Having convinced “Nate” of his sincerity, our infiltrator expressed interest in meeting up the next day when members would be in Atlanta for the show. Messaging with “Nate,” our mole received instructions to meet at Maddox Park on the west side of Atlanta late on Saturday afternoon.

Two SSAC leaders from South Carolina, “Nate,” who led the voice interview the evening before, and “Oyster Crackers,” rolled in to Maddox Park slightly after the scheduled time. “Nate” is Trent Alexander Pugh (born 2004) of Darlington County, South Carolina. Previously active with the White Lives Matter network in South Carolina, Pugh co-founded SSAC with “Oyster” and has played a central role in the organization since then. 

SSAC’s co-founder, “Oyster Crackers,” is David William Fair of Blythewood, South Carolina. David Fair was exposed last year as a member of Patriot Front, an ideologically racist and fascist organization. At that time, Fair was under eighteen. As we will discuss later, our group typically does not expose younger racists. While we do not have Fair’s exact date of birth, he is in his final year of high school. Since he has assumed leadership of a white nationalist organization that by its own explicit standards “accept[s] recruits from 18 […] years of age,” we are treating him as an adult. (The caption for an old newspaper photo also supports Fair now being eighteen.)

Fair used the alias “Aaron – SC” while he was a member of Patriot Front. According to a comment he later made to SSAC’s Telegram chat, Fair attended the 2022 Confederate Memorial Day rally at Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta. Patriot Front tasked Fair with “getting Antifa [license] plates” at that event (comment made by SSAC admin “WO”/David Fair, January 11, 2023).

Fair left Patriot Front at some point last year and turned his attention to the white nationalist “White Lives Matter” project instead, becoming its leader for South Carolina. Along with WLM – South Carolina’s Trent Pugh, he formed Southern Sons Active Club. Fair is almost certainly responsible for the SSAC flyers distributed in his hometown of Blythewood last Halloween, which made local news. 

Although he is young, Fair has built ties with older boneheads (racist pseudo-“skinheads”) around the South and on the East Coast. In their propaganda, Active Clubs typically avoid the boots-and-bomber-jacket look of earlier generations of white supremacists, viewing it as outdated and as a barrier to popularizing their message. However, Southern Sons does not distance itself from the bonehead scene, for example posting to its Telegram channel about its members attending an American Defense Skinheads show in Pennsylvania during September.

Meeting with “Nate” and “Oyster” at Maddox Park, our infiltrator learned that they were in Atlanta to attend a non-political music festival with punk and skinhead bands at a local skatepark. Our mole answered questions from the two leaders and learned more about SSAC. According to David Fair, SSAC had been growing recently even though:

“We’ve been kinda on the down-low for a little bit […] At least my crew’s been kinda on the down-low ‘cuz we had some shit come up […] and he [“Nate”/Trent Pugh] got caught shoplifting.”

We were later able to identify “Nate”/Trent Pugh through this shoplifting charge.

After this discussion at the park, our mole made excuses to be elsewhere, and the two white supremacists departed for the show, to meet up with Justin Burger of Clockwork Crew as well as their American Defense Skinheads friend. We passed on a warning to the venue. While probably unconnected to our heads-up, we later learned that the neo-Nazis were kicked out of the show, with Pugh complaining “they claimed our bud was buying minors drinks”. Amusingly, months later a member of our crew met an attendee of this festival who had confronted Fair and Pugh, immediately clocking them as potential boneheads. Showing just how proud they were of their ideology, Fair and Pugh denied being racists or fascists, claiming they were traditional (non-racist, “apolitical”) skins.

Following the voice interview and the Atlanta meet-up, our mole joined SSAC as an “associate” but not yet an official “prospect”—someone on the path to full membership. To become a “prospect,” the club required proof of activism, such as placing graffiti or distributing flyers. Fortunately, this was easy to fake, and our infiltrator soon became a prospect. Our mole joined SSAC’s internal “vetted” Telegram channel and placed in the Georgia state chat. Because our infiltrator had taken the unusual step of meeting out-of-state leaders before getting to know his own state group, the next step would be to become active in the Georgia club.

SSAC’s Structure

David Fair and Trent Pugh created SSAC’s structure on the fly. In South Carolina, the club was divided into three regional “crews”: Fair leading the Columbia-area crew, Pugh representing the Pee Dee region, and a member called “Founding Stock” responsible for the Charleston area. As SSAC’s creators, Fair and Pugh lead the club and have the final word within it. However, as of early April, Pugh has gone silent online. In mid-April, he was removed from SSAC vetted chats, leaving Fair as the club’s overall leader. 

In Georgia and North Carolina, SSAC has a leader designated for each state. These state leaders answer to Fair and Pugh. If membership in these states were to expand, the state groups would presumably sub-divide into regional crews. During our infiltration, a regional crew was coming together south of Raleigh in North Carolina. However, things did not go as planned and its members broke or were purged from SSAC. We will discuss this split in a later section.

Georgia SSAC Chapter: Early Identifications

Soon after our infiltrator was admitted into SSAC communication channels, we were able to identify three members of Georgia’s SSAC chapter.

Robert Harry Knobel, II (born 1984) in Midway, Georgia is the state leader for SSAC. Knobel goes by the alias “Chad Base” on Telegram. Before he was “Chad Base,” Knobel used an account with the name “Cornpop Waffen.” 

We identified Knobel soon after our infiltrator joined Southern Sons, as Knobel is particularly loose-lipped and enjoys sharing videos of himself and his Midway property to others in the club. Indeed, Knobel is so careless that a second anti-fascist crew, who we are not in regular contact with, was able to independently identify “Chad” after we identified him while we were drafting this article. 

Knobel is a former Proud Boy who, prior to joining Southern Sons, operated an antisemitic and white nationalist group named “FL GA Border Waffen.” We mentioned the “FL GA Border Waffen” in an article earlier this year exposing White Lives Matter – Georgia leader Devin Brosnahan. A video from February 2022 shows Knobel, Brosnahan, and others placing flyers for the antisemitic Goyim Defense League into weighted plastic bags, before participants threw the propaganda onto lawns in coastal Georgia. The video, which also shows the group making Nazi salutes, was mostly filmed on Knobel’s property.

In late October 2022, Knobel joined members of “NatSoc Florida,” a neo-Nazi group, as they held antisemitic banners at an interstate overpass in Jacksonville, Florida, during traffic for the University of Florida v. University of Georgia football game. Not long after, SSAC began expanding into Georgia, announcing on its Telegram channel in early November: “We are now considering membership for those in Georgia, particularly eastern Georgia”. Knobel and his “Border Waffen” network became the basis for the Georgia SSAC chapter.

Particularly disturbing is Knobel’s indoctrination of his children, all of which he homeschools, into neo-Nazism. In the chats, Knobel posted images of his sons holding toy guns, wearing masks (one a skull mask), and throwing Nazi salutes, as well as audio of two of his children expressing racist and antisemitic views.

Knobel works as a millwright and is part of the Southern States Millwrights Regional Council, employed at an industrial site where members from that union are active. Over the course of our infiltration, Knobel encouraged other SSAC members to menace one of his coworkers from a previous job, and to search for information to pressure and manipulate another. Because he is an obvious threat to those around him, identifying Knobel’s current workplace is important. Please get in touch if you have any tips.

Jasper Daniel Alexander Collins (born 1999), currently living in or near Savannah, joined SSAC Georgia this January under the name “Gerard.” In 2019, our group exposed Collins as an antisemite who celebrated Hitler and promoted “white genocide” conspiracy theories. At that time, Collins worked as a firefighter. Collins later moved out-of-state.

Under the name “Gerard,” Collins was active with Patriot Front while living in Indiana. According to his comments in an SSAC Georgia voice chat, Collins helped vet other potential members for the organization. In typed comments to “SSAC Vetted” on Telegram, “Gerard”/Collins also admitted to targeting a church in Columbus, Indiana with Patriot Front stencil graffiti in early April 2021. Collins returned to Georgia later in 2021. He appears to have exited Patriot Front before the organization’s disastrous rally in Washington, DC that December. Since being admitted as a SSAC member, Collins has been targeting downtown Savannah with stickers promoting the group. In mid-March, Collins also became an administrator for SSAC’s general Telegram chat.

We also easily identified Richard Paul Péwé, III (born 1990) of Ludowicki, Georgia as part of the Georgia chapter. Péwé uses the alias “Hog Yerg” (and later “Bobby Yerg”) in the Telegram channel for SSAC Georgia. Like his close friend Robert Knobel, Péwé was active in the Proud Boy before embracing unambiguous antisemitism and white nationalism. Although we are writing about Péwé for the first time, our organization has been aware of him for years. Before his Telegram account as “Hog Yerg,” Péwé had an account under the name “Dickie Waffen,” which he used to brag about placing White Lives Matter stickers in late 2021. 

Although he wore a skull face mask, Péwé is recognizable in the February 2022 video of a group preparing and distributing Goyim Defense League flyers that we mentioned earlier in this article. Péwé was also one of the two individuals who distributed homophobic/transphobic flyers at the Savannah Pride evening celebrations on October 28, 2022. The Telegram channel for White Lives Matter – Georgia later celebrated this flyer distribution.

Péwé lurked in SSAC Georgia’s chat since our infiltration began, and he later became an official member of the state group at Knobel’s urging. Péwé entered the Georgia chapter’s vetted chat on February 25th, 2023. We are currently seeking information on Péwé’s work—he was one of the incorporators of Southpaw Handyman Services in 2019, but the business was administratively dissolved the following year. He may now be working in a similar industry as Knobel.

It should be noted that Péwé’s father is the Chief Administrative Officer for Hillsdale College, a private conservative college in Michigan described as having a “complicated history on race”. Richard Paul Péwé, III is also a Hillsdale graduate.

Continued Monitoring: Georgia and South Carolina

At this point, our infiltrator was not yet a formal member of the Georgia group but had been invited into several SSAC communications channels. 

On Monday, January 30th, SSAC Georgia leader Robert Knobel held a voice chat over Telegram to make club plans. Jasper Collins and two SSAC organizers from South Carolina also participated in the chat. Knobel aimed to hold a club gathering at his property on Saturday, February 11, with the two South Carolina organizers traveling to attend. When Knobel fell ill before that weekend, the group abandoned these plans.

One of the South Carolina participants in the voice chat was “Founding Stock,” a SSAC crew leader based in or near Charleston. At the time of writing, “Founding Stock” has not been identified.

The other South Carolina organizer, who participated in the voice chat and planned to travel to Georgia, was SSAC’s “patch maker,” who goes by the nickname “Killer.” Peter Lloyd Curry, Jr. (AKA “Killer”) is a Proud Boy who moved toward unambiguous white nationalism and eventually joined Southern Sons. Curry was previously exposed by local anti-fascists over his involvement with the Proud Boys. Curry lives in Dorchester County and works as a telecommunications engineer. In his spare time, he manufactures the patches which full members of SSAC receive as part of their uniform. 

SSAC Relationship to “Blood and Soil Crew” / “Revolutionary White Brotherhood”

SSAC maintained close ties to “Blood and Soil Crew,” a small group of white supremacist teenagers in the South. “Blood and Soil” was also known as “2119,” since the second, first, and nineteenth letters of the alphabet are B, A, and S, respectively. Blood and Soil members could not formally be a part of SSAC, because SSAC involves members aged eighteen and older, while Blood and Soil was a group for neo-Nazi teens. However, Blood and Soil members participated in SSAC’s general chat on Telegram and could apply for SSAC membership at eighteen if they lived in a state where the Active Club operates.

In mid-March, “Blood and Soil Crew” removed its Telegram channel and rebranded as “Revolutionary White Brotherhood.” According to user “Duke Energy Company” in SSAC’s general chat, “Blood and soil had to rebrand because one of our guys went schizo and threatened to snitch on us” (comment from March 16, 2023).

Blood and Soil Crew/Revolutionary White Brotherhood’s leader in Georgia has used the aliases “Dancin Israelis” and “Duke Energy Company” on Telegram. The alias “Duke Energy Company” is a reference to attacks on power substations in North Carolina last year, which were celebrated by accelerationist neo-Nazis. 

Atlanta Antifascists avoid publicly identifying white supremacists who are under the age of eighteen. We will however break this internal guideline if other factors outweigh it, for example if there is an imminent threat to human life. In this case, we are only referring to “Dancin Israelis”/“Duke” by his initials. A.A. of Nashville, Georgia is in his mid-teens and attends Berrien High School, where his father coaches a sports team. A.A. regularly shares pictures of white nationalist stickers and flyers which he has placed in his immediate surroundings. To coincide with the publication of this article, we are reaching out to A.A.’s parents and school in the hope of curtailing this white supremacist campaigning.

Ties to Failed Bank Robbery Plot

On February 1^st in SSAC’s general Telegram chat, A.A./“Dancin Israelis” commented that “I dick ride ACE”. ACE is short for Aryan Compartmented Elements, a militant neo-Nazi group which claimed to have conducted an arson attack against a school administrator. Last year, two ACE leaders, Michael Brown (in Pennsylvania) and Luke Kenna (in New York) were arrested over a bank robbery plot. In January, a third person, Brian Tierney in Virginia, was arrested over his alleged role in the conspiracy. Tierney went by the handle “Manic” online.

A.A. (“Dancin Israelis”) disclosed to SSAC chat that “Manic is a personal friend of me [sic]” when discussing Tierney’s arrest. Later in the conversation, A.A. wrote: “I was one of the last people he [Tierney/’Manic’] DMed” before Tierney’s arrest. SSAC leaders also appear to have known Brian Tierney. Writing as SSAC chat administrator “WO,” David Fair claimed that: “I knew the guy [Tierney …] I didn’t even know his role [in the plot]”. Writing as administrator “NA,” Trent Pugh added that he had “Met him [Tierney] once”.

SSAC has another connection to the failed robbery plot. In the group’s February 1^st conversation, David Fair stated that “I’m just happy wig got off and wasn’t arrested for associating with him [Tierney]”. Fair added: “My buddy was sleeping in his car during the raid [Tierney’s arrest]”. “Wig” appears to have been a onetime member or close associate of SSAC. David Fair reminisced that “The day after [a SSAC camping trip] wig swore to never drink ever again”.

These ties to the neo-Nazi bank robbery plot do not mean that SSAC knew or approved of the plan. Trent Pugh described the scheme as “re[****]ed” during SSAC chatter about the arrests. Rather, these ties suggest that the militant rhetoric of Active Clubs will inevitably attract members who favor armed action. Some members will have ties to or be directly involved with violent white supremacist cells. Later during our infiltration, we found another example.

In-Person Vetting, New Member “Panzer 9,” and Jeffersonville, Georgia Banner Drop

Our infiltrator had already met South Carolina leaders for SSAC while they were in Atlanta. However, to become a “vetted” member of the Georgia SSAC chapter, he had to meet with Georgia members for an in-person interview. After Georgia leader Robert Knobel’s plans for February 11th fell through, he arranged a meeting in Jeffersonville, Georgia for the following Saturday, February 18th. Knobel’s plan was to vet our infiltrator and another potential member, then to drop a banner promoting SSAC in the area. SSAC member “Gerard” (Jasper Collins) would help with vetting the two candidates, as well as with the banner drop.

Our infiltrator arrived at the Huddle House restaurant off GA-404 around noon. Knobel, Collins, and the other candidate for SSAC’s Georgia chapter, “Panzer 9,” were already there. “Panzer 9” is Anthony Wayne Harden, Jr. (born 1982) of McDonough, Georgia. Harden’s Volkswagen Jetta was extremely conspicuous in the Huddle House parking lot, as the car featured a sticker of SS-bolts (used by the Nazi SS) and Vegvisir (“Viking compass,” also used by non-racist heathens) on the front of its roof rack.

A month before the meeting, Harden told SSAC’s general chat that: “I was a FRM [Folkish Resistance Movement] member” (January 15, 2023 comment to SSAC general chat). Folkish Resistance Movement (previously known as “Folksfront”) was a small neo-Nazi group active in Canada and the United States heavily influenced by the Nordic Resistance Movement. In a Telegram discussion to plan for the SSAC meeting in Jeffersonville, Harden explained that FRM had gone quiet: “we are active everywhere but ceased activities for a members sake […] Legal nonsense” (February 15, 2023 comments, “IRL meeting” discussion).

Harden was almost certainly responsible for the FRM stickers placed in McDonough, and then publicized on FRM’s Telegram announcement channel in January 2021. One of the photographs posted by FRM showed a sticker on the back of a stop sign in the direct vicinity of Harden’s Peach Drive home. Another of the neo-Nazi propaganda stickers appeared just a block and a half away from this home.

Harden also supports the Aryan Freedom Network (AFN), another neo-Nazi organization. AFN is currently advertising an “Aryan Fest” white supremacist gathering to be held later this year. This event was initially scheduled for June 10 in Georgia, almost certainly on private land or at a private business. In early April, AFN announced that it was rescheduling this gathering for October 21. Before this date change, Harden told the SSAC Georgia chat that he was “working to get vetted with them [AFN] now” (February 14 post to Georgia chat). One reason Harden wished to be vetted with AFN was so that he could function as an intermediary between AFN and the Georgia SSAC group to make arrangements for “Aryan Fest,” for example, with SSAC members participating in “Aryan boxing” at the gathering. In subsequent comments to SSAC’s vetted chat, Harden suggested that he had followed through with this AFN vetting—which involves providing AFN leaders with proof of one’s identity—although he may not have officially joined the network (comment from March 2, 2023). 

SSAC Georgia’s in-person vetting was lax, mostly just casual conversation at the Jeffersonville eatery. After Collins and Knobel were convinced that their two new friends were trustworthy, it was time for the banner drop. The neo-Nazis donned their face masks and posed for a photo behind the Huddle House with a sloppily painted SSAC banner prepared by Collins. The three Nazis and our infiltrator then moved their vehicles, parking nearer to the GA-404 overpass. With effort, they were able to hang the banner at the overpass, although it was poorly designed as well as improperly weighted and so blew in the wind, largely unreadable.

While our group—who naturally tailed the SSAC members and our infiltrator—had planned to remove the banner as soon as possible, the local Sheriff’s Office was on the scene within five minutes and were the ones who left with the banner. In Knobel’s mind, this banner drop was supposed to be a momentous occasion—SSAC’s first major action in Georgia beyond some stickers placed in various locations. In reality, it was a failure—an unreadable banner that was displayed for mere minutes before law enforcement seized it. Worse for the neo-Nazis, Georgia SSAC admitted an enemy infiltrator into its circle of trust.

For Part II, click here.