The Forsyth County Defense League was a white supremacist group established in 1987 in Cumming, Georgia, to counter efforts by Atlanta City Councilperson Hosea Williams to integrate all-white Forsyth County. The group and its successor Nationalist Movement have won some prominent court battles on behalf of members' who support discrimination against non-whites, to march and to meet in public buildings. 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Cumming is a city in Forsyth County, Georgia, United States. ... Rev. ... Forsyth County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. ...

Impact

White supremacy has lost its popularity since the group's heyday in the late 1980s and 1990s. At the time, it tried to substitute new words for phrases like "segregationists," "klansmen" and "white-supremacists." Watts helped popularize the euphemisms "Nationalist" and "pro-majority," and sympathizers adopted the term "rightist." The group also tried to label civil rights activists "outside agitators," as they were called locally before the 1960s. The Rex Theatre for Colored People Racial segregation is characterized by separation of different races in daily life when both are doing equal tasks, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a rest room, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or... Members of the second Ku Klux Klan at a rally during the 1920s. ... White supremacy is the variety of white nationalism that believes the white race should rule over other races. ... Eugène Delacroixs Liberty Leading the People, symbolising French nationalism during the July Revolution. ...

Watts and other supremacists also successfully fought being barred from public places by public officials. Sheriff Wesley Walraven barred the League from meeting at the Forsyth County Courthouse while welcoming the Bi-Racial Committee. Watts sued, in Forsyth County Defense League v. Forsyth County, Georgia, the first such litigation by white supremacists, and a federal court ordered Walraven to admit the group.

The League also introduced the practice of calling for public assemblies and adopting platforms by public acclamation. It insisted upon strict legality, prompting Frank Shirley, who believed in vigilantism, to resign.

A number of its supporters have been jailed and fined. Shirley, Danny Carver, David Holland and Ed Stephens lost a $1 million discrimination judgement, but charges against the Nationalists were dismissed. Holland also received a lengthy federal-prison sentence on related charges. On April 13, 1987, the League changed its name to The Nationalist Movement. The Nationalist Movement is a controversial Mississippi-based organization that advocates what it calls a pro-majority position. ...

History

Following a racially motivated killing in New York in 1987, about 50 civil rights supporters including Hosea Williams marched in all-white Forsyth County, Georgia, which was considered hostile to blacks. They were attacked by 400 white supremacists who pelted them with bottles, bricks and rocks. A week later Williams returned for another, widely publicized march that drew 20,000 people. Image File history File links Forsyth_County_Georgia. ...

The league was founded by Mark Watts and eventually merged with Frank Shirley's Committee to Keep Forsyth and Dawson Counties White. White supremacist lawyer and speaker Richard Barrett also joined. Some 6,000, mostly young, protesters, including former Governor Lester Maddox, turned out for the League's Majority Rights Freedom Parade on January 24, 1987. Sixty-six people were arrested. Richard Barrett (born 1943) is an American lawyer, White nationalist and self-proclaimed leader in the nationalist Skinheadz (not to be confused with skinhead) movement. ...

The League later complained to the staff of Governor Joe Frank Harris about the members' arrests and the use of the National Guard to protect civil rights marchers. Watts was promised that there would be no repetition of such arrests and that the Guard would be used to protect league members in the future.

On February 22, 1987, some 200 members and supporters met in a chicken house and adopted the Forsyth County Covenant, which called for white or "majority-rule" democracy.

Watts and the League were sued by Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center in federal court in Atlanta, alleging that they had discriminated against "every Negro in the State of Georgia," used intimidation and violence and violated the Civil Rights Bill in Hosea Williams v. Forsyth County Defense League. Barrett successfully defended the litigation and all charges were adjudicated as false. An arrest warrant was issued by Kenyon Cobb, in Forsyth County, Georgia v. Richard Barrett, for Richard Barrett, alleging that Barrett had illegally waved the state flag. The case was also thrown out of court. The League conducted numerous, high profile rallies, parades and meetings, including an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, and mounted a defense for those arrested protesting Williams. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American non-profit legal organization, whose stated purpose is to combat racism and promote civil rights through research, education, and litigation. ...

David Duke used the league's appeal to collect money, mailing out solicitations under a slightly different name, "Forsyth County Defense Fund" (instead of "League") and signing Watts' name without his permission. The money did not go to those arrested, however, according to The Rise of David Duke by Tyler Bridges, and the real league's integrity was questioned. Evidence of the Duke mailing eventually was instrumental in Duke's pleading guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion. David Ernest Duke (born July 1, 1950) is a former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, a candidate in presidential primaries for both the Democratic and Republican parties, and former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. ...

Hosea Williams' Bi-Racial Committee met in the Forsyth County courthouse but did not succeed in immediately integrating the county. However, it is no longer all-white.

Following Watts as chairman of the league were Junior Staton, and then Jim Harding. The league's successor group, The Nationalist Movement, subsequently moved to Mississippi.

See also

• White nationalism
• The Nationalist Movement

This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Nationalist Movement is a controversial Mississippi-based organization that advocates what it calls a pro-majority position. ...

Reference

• Bridges, Tyler The Rise of David Duke (Mississippi University Press, 1995; 300 pages) ISBN 0-87805-678-5

External links

• Patriots' Honor Roll Counter-demonstrators arrested on January 24, 1987
• Radical Politics Critique by Center for Democratic Renewal, formerly Anti-Klan Network
• Williams v. Forsyth County Defense League Case-dismissal with prejudice
• Williams v. Forsyth County Defense League Federal-court complaint by Hosea Williams