Precis

A year into Donald Trump’s presidency resurgent white supremacists are preaching hate. Now left- wing activists are hitting back with their own shock tactics. The ABC’s Stephanie March goes inside a controversial radical group.

They call themselves Redneck Revolt.

They’re a citizens’ militia that totes guns in the name of community defence.

A right wing neo-Nazi group? Just the opposite.

I would argue we’re in a new civil war – Dwayne Dixon, Redneck Revolt

With chapters spreading across America, Redneck Revolt is a left-wing counter to white supremacists who have found voice and vigour under Donald Trump’s presidency. It’s part of a broad new movement of self-proclaimed anti-fascists and anti-racists called “Antifa”.  But some Antifa tactics are too extreme even for many on their own side.

There’s a Nazi over there with a gun.  I wanna make sure I’ve got a gun too – Jeff, Redneck Revolt

Correspondent Stephanie March obtains rare access to the at times secretive men and women of Redneck Revolt as they plot to disrupt white supremacist rallies in America’s South.  

White lives matter! White lives matter! – white nationalist protesters

Among the Redneck Revolt counter-protesters is Dwayne Dixon. The softly spoken, vegan anthropology professor is as comfortable carrying an AR-15 assault rifle as he is in the classroom.

When the left uses violence, in the rare case that it happens, it’s resistance. To paraphrase poorly George Orwell, the best offence against tyranny is a rifle over the fireplace of every working man – Dwayne Dixon

To Dwayne Dixon, evidence of that tyranny is seen in the growing number of hate crimes against African-Americans, Muslims and immigrants. A key player in the white nationalist movement is Matthew Heimbach, once described as the youthful, affable face of hate in America.  Preying on white Americans’ fears of becoming a “hated and despised” minority, Matthew Heimbach wants a whites-only homeland within the USA.

We’re the ones that were able to settle and build our nation. We were able to come and conquer it and create this civilisation. This is ours – Matthew Heimbach

His stated ambition for a white Christian Utopia strains credulity.  More believable is the immediate aim to normalise racism.

America is a house on fire… A multicultural America leads to tension – Matthew Heimbach

Antifa groups like Redneck Revolt argue that Americans are foolish to dismiss the rise of supremacist groups.

Back 10 years ago there were a handful. Today there are many more. You organise against these small groups as if they could be the starting points of future murderous movements… and you stand up to them by any means necessary – Mark Bray, left wing scholar and author

I’m not going to let people fly swastikas freely on the streets of the United States – Dwayne Dixon

Helicopter. GFX:
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

00:00

Protestors and riot police

00:04

STEPHANIE MARCH: Remember this? 

00:06

Music

00:10

Protests over Trump’s inauguration

STEPHANIE MARCH:  A year ago, left wing activists venting their rage at Donald Trump’s inauguration – the beginning of a presidency that’s brought extremists from both sides out into the open. 

00:18

White supremacists rally

PROTESTORS: “White lives matter!  White lives matter! White lives matter!  White lives matter!”

00:34

March interviews Heimbach

STEPHANIE MARCH: “What’s wrong with having a multi-cultural America?”

00:40

MATTHEW HEIMBACH: “We have a right to this land, we paid for it in our own blood and our own sacrifice and no one has a right to take it away from us”.

00:43

Counter protest rally

PROTESTORS: “No Trump!  No KKK!  No fascist USA!”

STEPHANIE MARCH:  Now the radical left is more organised. 

00:49

PROTESTORS: “Black lives they matter here!”

STEPHANIE MARCH: They’re called “Antifa” – self-proclaimed anti-racist, anti-fascists whose tactics shock even some on their own side.

00:57

Dixon from top of car

DWAYNE DIXON: [yelling at protestors at march] “Go over there and get ready to get hit!”

 01:08

Dixon interview

“I would argue we’re in a new civil war”. 

01:10

Antifa members with guns

STEPHANIE MARCH: Tonight, inside one far left group taking up arms they say to protect America from neo-Nazis. 

01:12

Dixon

DWAYNE DIXON: “I’m not going to let people fly swastikas freely on the streets of the United States”. 

01:25

Child raises hand in Nazi salute

MAN: All right son, put it down.

01:31

Rural Tennessee. March driving

Music

01:37

GFX:  REDNECK REVOLT

01:43

GFX:
Reporter: STEPHANIE MARCH

01:53

STEPHANIE MARCH: We’re in rural Tennessee, the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan.  A century and a half later, racism isn’t bothering to hide its face like the Klan once did.

02:00

March to camera

[driving] “We’re heading to Shelbyville in Tennessee where a group of white nationalists are holding a rally that they’re calling “White Lives Matter”.  We know counter protestors are going to be there too, and if past events are anything to go by, it could get ugly”.

01:14

Rural Tennessee GVs

Music

02:30

Café in Shelbyville

02:48

Deserted streets of Shelbyville

STEPHANIE MARCH:  Ahead of tomorrow’s rally, the city centre is virtually deserted, locals are on edge. 

02:54

Dorothy interview

DOROTHY FANNIN: “No one’s happy about it.  This doesn’t represent Shelbyville, doesn’t represent who we are, people are afraid.  Almost everybody on the square closing their doors.  I guess that’s our way of saying we don’t want it here”.

02:59

Shelbyville GVs

Music

03:16

STEPHANIE MARCH: Almost 200 years old, this small city in middle Tennessee on the bank of the Duck River is best known for breeding horses and was once a pencil manufacturing hub.  It rankles that the white nationalists are from out of town and have targeted Shelbyville for its growing population of Somali and Latin American migrants doing low skilled jobs.

03:22

Dorothy interview

DOROTHY FANNIN: “I don’t want Shelbyville to be known as the place where the white supremacy rally was held and violence broke out and people were killed or run over or beaten up or anything like that, because that’s not Shelbyville, that’s not who we are”.

03:53

Police or rooftop/preparing for protest

04:05

POLICE: “Where’s the gas mask?”

04:11

STEPHANIE MARCH: The next day this city of 21,000 looks like it is preparing for an invasion. 

04:15

Police scan protestors

POLICE OFFICER: “Put everything on the table”. 

04:25

Journalist with protestor holding Black Lives Matter sign

FEMALE JOURNALIST: “It’s clear by your signs, but which side are you out here supporting?”

PROTESTOR: “I’m on the counter protest”.

04:32

Various. People in counter protest area.

STEPHANIE MARCH: Police are as worried about the far right as they are the far left, those who call themselves Antifa – anti-fascists. 

04:39

Brandi watches drone overhead

BRANDI CAMPBELL: [drone overhead] “Is that to make sure none of the rascally leftists get all crazy?”

STEPHANIE MARCH: Brandi Campbell lives in the state next door, North Carolina.  A few months ago, she joined the local branch of a national far left group called Redneck Revolt.  They claim to be anti-fascist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist and are sometimes armed. 

04:51

Arrival of white supremacists

MAN: All folks, they’re coming in… Put up a fist in solidarity…

BRANDI CAMPBELL: “This is not normal. This isn’t acceptable.

05:12

Brandi watches arrival of white supremacists

Now we see this narrative that is completely condoned and even promoted by the President, by cabinet numbers allowing really evil and detrimental ideology to take root”. 

05:22

Brandi yelling at other side

 “You are not Christian!...  They are pieces of shit.  No that is simplistic. I’m sure that some of them are mentally ill.  Personally. I think that some of them are consumed by evil.  How to you explain people who allow themselves to sell that kind of rhetoric?  That’s evil”.

STEPHANIE MARCH:  Across the barricades is white nationalist

05:36

Heimbach at protest

leader Matthew Heimbach – once described as the youthful, affable face of hate in America.  His group is just one of 1600 extremist groups active in the US at both ends of the political spectrum.

06:08

PROTESTOR: “We care about your children and the future of our race”.

06:22

March with Heimbach at protest

STEPHANIE MARCH: I first met him a couple of years ago when his group, the Traditionalist Worker Party, had just a handful of members.  Now he claims to have a thousand followers, still tiny but since Donald Trump’s rise, extremist fringe groups on both sides are growing in numbers and influence. 

06:26

“Do you have undercover help here?  I mean…”

MATTHEW HEIMBACH: [interrupts interview to yell chant] “White lives matter!  White lives matter! White lives matter!  White lives matter!  White lives matter! White lives matter!  White lives matter! White lives matter!  White lives matter!” [to Stephanie] “Sorry, anyway as you were saying?”

06:46

‘White Lives Matter’ protestors

STEPHANIE MARCH: Heimbach wants a homeland for whites only in the US, a segregated Utopia in middle America where people of colour are not welcome.

07:03

March interviews Heimbach

“What’s wrong with having a multi-cultural America?”

07:11

MATTHEW HEIMBACH: “A multi-cultural America leads to tension as we see all over the world.  Multiculturalism leads to strife. So, we think everyone has a right to their own land, but we have a right to this land. We paid for it in our own blood and our own sacrifice and no one has a right to take it away from us”.

07:15

Counter-protestors

PROTESTOR: “You guys forgot your sound system, you forgot your people, you forgot your robes, you forgot your swastikas.  You were going to bus in Nazis from Detroit in your own form of affirmative action and they’re not here.  Sad Nazis.  We came!”

07:30

STEPHANIE MARCH: Hate crimes mainly targeting African Americans, Muslims and immigrants have increased two years in a row across the country and they’re on track to rise for a third.  The goal of groups like Matthew Heimbach’s is to normalise racism.

07:75

Heimbach yelling from behind barricade

MATTHEW HEIMBACH: “White working people will fight!  We will march! We will struggle!  We will ensure the existence of our people and a future for white children.  Because our people have a right to exist.  That message is simple”.

08:02

March interviews Heimbach

STEPHANIE MARCH: “Why do you think that whites have a right to America though?”

08:24

MATTHEW HEIMBACH: “Well we’re the ones that were able to settle, to build our nation here.  We were able to come and conquer it and build and be able to create this civilisation.  This is ours”.

STEPHANIE MARCH: “In terms of a right to be here, why go back two or three or four generations and say those people should move, why not go all the way back to the first people that were here and say everyone that came after should get out?”

08:30

MATTHEW HEIMBACH: “Well because we made treaties for this land and we won it fair and square”.

08:51

White nationalists/Police

STEPHANIE MARCH: The white nationalists here are outnumbered and drowned out by their more vocal opponents. Still, they claim a propaganda victory. 

MATTHEW HEIMBACH: “You don’t just have to physically

08:55

Heimbach

hear us speak. By recording our speeches, doing videos, playing them online, the media, allows us to be able to continue to reach even more people than the ones that came out to join us”.

09:18

‘White Lives Matter’ protestors

PROTESTORS: [chanting] “White lives matter!  White lives matter! White lives matter White lives matters!”

09:28

Heimbach on megaphone in car park

MATTHEW HEIMBACH: “All right ladies and gentlemen. You did an amazing job today so everyone load up, get together, let’s form this convoy up because, this is fundamentally about us as one big family.  So, thank you guys and heil victory”. 

09:54

Guy does Nazi salute

PROTESTORS: “Heil victory”.

10:07

Protestors drive to pub

STEPHANIE MARCH: Heimbach’s group cap off the day’s work with a visit to the pub where they brawl with a mixed-race couple. 

10:12

Brawl at pub

MAN: Oh my god, she’s bleeding.

10:21

Durham GVs

STEPHANIE MARCH:  We want to know more about the people on the other side who call themselves anti-fascists or Antifa.  

10:38

Brandi driving

So we’ve come to Durham in North Caroline with Brandi Campbell, the protestor we met in Shelbyville. 

BRANDI CAMPBELL: “Redneck Revolt is really anti-fascist, anti-racist, community support group and I joined over the summer”. 

10:50

Brandi arrives at Dwayne’s house

STEPHANIE MARCH: Redneck Revolt says its movement is growing rapidly. From a handful of chapters a year ago, they claim there are now more than 30 nationwide. 

11:14

Antifa meeting

Unlike many Antifa activists, these Redneck Revolt members have agreed to let us show their faces.  Though it took lengthy persuasion to be granted this access.  Anti-fascist groups have been criticised by both the right and the left for their willingness to use force.  They risk a backlash from the far right and police, but also from their own employers and families.

11:38

Today it’s medical training at member Dwayne Dixon’s house.  The goal, they say, is to be a broad community support group and helping people be self-sufficient in all aspects of their lives.  They run food banks and do first aid training, but their most striking feature is their commitment to armed self-defence. 

12:05

Jeff addresses meeting

JEFF: [at meeting] “But nobody really wants to get shot.  Most folks don’t want to be a martyr, so it’s like you’re there, I’m here.  Neither one of us gets shot.  I have a gun, you have a gun, everybody be cool.  It’s that scary point that our armed society is a polite society so the reality is if there’s a Nazi over there with a gun, I want to make sure I’ve got a gun too”.

ELORY: “And I want to make sure he knows that I have a gun”.

12:27

[continues]

DWAYNE DIXON: “I think that also really delineates us, you know maybe most accurately say the far left, but maybe people who just value autonomy, right?  Communal and individual autonomy and freedom over fascists.  The fascists are coming for you”.

12:53

Dwayne cleaning his guns

“I grew up in a military family on my father’s side.

13:12

His uncle, my great uncle, was a marine.  My grandfather was a bomber pilot during World War II and then my father was a career army officer.  Also, my parents are fundamentalist Baptists so I always say that I grew up with the sword of the Lord in one hand

13:17

and the sword of the State in the other”.

STEPHANIE MARCH: Dwayne Dixon is an anthropology professor who joined Redneck Revolt in 2016.  Reclaiming the word “redneck” is supposed to be a salute to America’s rural working class, a group he sees as downtrodden.  Redneck Revolt is about taking back power from government and big business.

13:33

March with Dixon

DWAYNE DIXON: “It’s always profits over people. It’s always about the richest people trying to increase their bottom line at the benefit of the rest of us. 

13:55

To sort of paraphrase, poorly, George Orwell who says that the best defence against tyranny is a rifle over the fireplace of every working man – I would say working person – that may seem really simplistic and I’m not in any way advocating that people need to be always out in the streets, but there is some way that I think it’s important for us to think about the capacity for defence, for community defence”.

14:02

STEPHANIE MARCH: “How do you justify the use of violence as a tactic?”

14:32

DWAYNE DIXON: “When the left uses violence, in the rare cases that it happens, it’s resistance.  But when those actions are taken it’s because some other kind of threat has already materialised and therefore that danger coming from far-right action justifies and necessitates some kind of intervention with force”.

14:36

Charlottesville Unite the Right 2016 rally

Music

14:54

STEPHANIE MARCH: It was this event I Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2016 that galvanised many anti-fascist groups including Redneck Revolt. 

PROTESTORS: “You will not replace us!  You will not replace us!”

STEPHANIE MARCH: The Unite the Right Rally

15:00

was described as the largest far right gathering in a generation.  White nationalist groups marched against city council plans to remove a statue of its civil war general, only to be met by counter protestors.

15:17

Dixon interview

DWAYNE DIXON: “This is not just about free speech, right. These are people with clearly stated intention to carry out violence against people of colour, against queer folks, against women.  And they’re not just speaking, they’re marching. They’re marching in a way that you know is intimidating, as we all know is clearly harking back to the torch light rallies of the Nazi era”.

15:34

Redneck Revolt protestors

STEPHANIE MARCH: The next day the fight continued. 

16:00

Redneck Revolt came armed.  They intentionally hung back from the main clashes.

DWAYNE DIXON: “Our purpose was to provide a static community defence perimeter.  Our goal was to never move around, to never intimidate by being a mobile unit

16:13

Dixon interview

that would somehow suggest possible violence through carrying our weapons through the streets.  We were just going to protect the perimeter of the park. We stayed on the sidewalk the entire day.  We didn’t venture out into the surrounding environs of the city, that we are really a known entity”.

16:28

STILLS. Redneck Revolt in Charlottesville with guns

STEPHANIE MARCH: They say they were invited by a black anarchist group to provide protection, but many on the left were shocked to see their own side carrying weapons.

16:48

iPhone footage. Redneck Revolt in Charlottesville with guns

PROTESTOR: “Whoa hey how’s it going? Packing heat.  No shit.  That’s pretty hard-core man”. 

16:59

Dixon interview

STEPHANIE MARCH: “So you were partially unwelcome by the left?”

DWAYNE DIXON: “Well at least

17:10

we knew that we were being intensely scrutinised, yeah that we weren’t necessarily a welcome presence.

17:13

Still. Dixon at protest with guns

That maybe we were disrupting their optics.  My personal rejoinder would be like well who’s worrying about optics when people might actually be killed?”

17:18

Scuffles and fighting at protest

STEPHANIE MARCH:  The weapons didn’t stop the chaos.  Police failed to intervene and were later pilloried for their inaction.  There was violence on both sides, but the right took it to a new level.

17:27

Protestor fires gun

PROTESTOR: “Hey nigger!” 

17:42

Montage of confrontations

17:50

Car rams counter protestors

PROTESTORS [chant]: Our streets… Our streets…

18:00

PROTESTOR: “Holy shit.  Holy shit. That Nazi just drove into people”.

18:10

STILL. Car ram

STEPHANIE MARCH: A white supremacist allegedly drove his car into a group of counter protestors, injuring more than 30 people and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. 

18:17

Aftermath of car ram

PROTESTOR: [to police officer arriving at scene] “Somebody might be dead folks. Somebody might…holy shit! The cops, just now getting here. Where the fuck were you?”

18:28

Dixon interview

DWAYNE DIXON: “What happened in Charlottesville is pretty unimaginable.  It’s unimaginable in its incoherence that this is the United States”.

STEPHANIE MARCH: “And how did you feel leaving Charlottesville?”

18:40

DWAYNE DIXON: “Like I had left a battlefield.  Clearly, no one could have predicted what it turned into, this really striking watershed moment in contemporary US history”.

18:51

STEPHANIE MARCH: “What’s it done for groups on the left?”

19:03

DWAYNE DIXON: “I think it’s made people have a much higher degree of vigilance to recognise that dangers might be much closer to home than they imagined”.

19:06

Vigil for Heather Heyer

19:24

Durham GVs

Music

19:27

Dixon walking through crowd

STEPHANIE MARCH: Dwayne Dixon’s home in Durham is just a few hour’s drive south of Charlottesville.  It’s a progressive bubble in the conservative south, a university town that grew rich from cigarettes. 

19:44

Dixon at food truck

“So Durham’s rapidly changed in the last 10 years.  It’s gone through a dramatic shift from being a tobacco town, and when I moved here you used to still be able to smell tobacco in the summer on a hot humid day, that changed. 

20:05

Food trucks

But I think what’s really important is to recognise it’s still in the south and even though there is a kind of, the luxury of a liberal bubble where people don’t really have to confront a lot of the problems that are pervasive throughout the United States, that it only takes a short drive, 10 miles or more up the road and you really do enter rural Southern America and it’s not as simple or as stereotypical as one might imagine”. 

20:20

Activist tears down statue

20:50

STEPHANIE MARCH: In the days after the violence in Charlottesville, local activists in Durham tore down a statue dedicated to the civil war soldiers who fought in defence of slavery. 

20:55

Woman addressing crowd

PROTESTOR: “The KKK has applied for a permit to march at four right here in Durham”. 

21:10

White nationalist to black woman

WHITE NATIONALIST: You all hate me, but I can’t hate you.

21:24

STEPHANIE MARCH:  Rumours of a Ku Klux Khan rally in town prompted Dixon to hit the streets.  He believes the police are too accommodating of the far right.

21:27

Protestors march

DWAYNE DIXON: “This is shades of Charlottesville all over again

21:37

Dixon interview

in terms of the way law enforcement was noticeably absent. 

21:42

Dwayne holding his AR-15 directing people on the street, bystander confronts him

Getting out of the car, I made this really clear choice to take my rifle with me”.

MALE PROTESTOR: [to Dwayne carrying his rifle] “Get the fuck out of here”.

DWAYNE DIXON: “Yep, alright, fine. 

21:45

Dixon addressing protestors from top of car

Some of you are willing to put your shit down, go over there and get ready to get hit”.

21:55

People burning KKK flag

STEPHANIE MARCH:  The KKK never came but Dwayne and those who tore down the statue were charged with multiple offences.

22:00

Dixon interview

“Would you do it again?”

DWAYNE DIXON: “I’ve thought about this a lot, like, like replayed that day. 

22:09

Carrying a rifle one, it insists upon my rights as a citizen to have the means for my own self-defence when the State is absent or unwilling to actually intervene.

22:14

The sheriff was not protecting the people in the street”.

22:24

STEPHANIE MARCH: “It sounds like you would do it again”.

22:27

DWAYNE DIXON: “I would definitely do it again. I’m not going to willingly stand-by, I’m not going to be passive or a spectator or fall back behind some kind of centrist line that outsources resistance to fascism, say to the State, like imagining the police will quote do their job.  Because I would argue they have a stake in the far-right ideology. I mean incarceration rates, deportation rates, endless war against people abroad.  There’s an imperialist endeavour that the US has undertaken and the far right, while they’re not within the government, they represent arguably an extension of a line of thinking that travels through the United States Government into that territory”.

22:28

North Carolina GVs/Dixon arrives for gun training. Greets Chance Allen

Music

23:11

STEPHANIE MARCH: Extreme circumstances can create strange bedfellows and they don’t come much more strange than this.  Dwayne Dixon and his leftist crew have come to meet Chance Allen – a member of an armed militia called the American Pit Vipers – in the hope of forming an unusual alliance. 

23:48

Allen is a Trump voter.  His group is committed to aiding law enforcement and defending free speech, including by the far right.  He first encountered Redneck Revolt at a pro-Trump rally when one of his members tried to assault one of theirs. 

24:07

Allen interview

“What did you think about Antifa groups a year ago?”

CHANCE ALLEN: “A year ago? It was just complete utter hatred.  And that’s all there was to it. 

24:26

From what I thought originally that they were just 100% anti-Americans and after coming to find out most of it was, you know fake made up stuff anyhow”.

24:37

Gun training

STEPHANIE MARCH: Shocked by the violence in Charlottesville, both groups now recognise a common cause in civil defence. 

24:47

CHANCE ALLEN: “Yeah at one time I was solid, Unite the Right, but then it comes back down to once I started seeing the bullshit out there and wanting to know the facts and get to learn, that’s when I started realising it’s, we the people means we the people. We’re all the people.  You know most media wouldn’t cover this because we’re not here to shoot each other”. 

24:55

Dixon interview

DWAYNE DIXON: “Yeah I really don’t imagine this to be some kind of conversion crusade, but it really is trying to establish lines of affiliation, lines of affection even.  I’m trying to get them to point their guns in the right direction.

25:20

For us, having access to weapons and having the skill and competency with them, allows us to at least consider that among a diversity of possible tactics.  It doesn’t mean that they’re going to be used all the time, but recognising the moment we’re in, when real white terrorist violence is a fact of American life, and we know that this is a real danger and we’re not willing to abdicate our own security to the State.

25:40

March at gun training

STEPHANIE MARCH: These groups do not represent mainstream America.  Out of a population of more than 320 million, they’re on the fringe. But in a country awash with weapons, the growing divisiveness signals a deeply troubling shift.  As we saw by their strong presence at Shelbyville, police are taking the threat of violence more seriously.  Both sides say they’ll do whatever it takes.

26:05

Heimbach interview

MATTHEW HEIMBACH: “America is a house on fire and flooding simultaneously, you know in a crafty and horror hell scape  My children’s life depends on me to be able to build them a better world to grow up in and I don’t want them to grow up in this one as a hated and despised minority on the land that their ancestors gave their blood and their lives to build for them. 

26:33

No one would question if I were to say, you know, if my family was drowning or in a house fire, if I would be able to run in and grab my family and get them to safety, even if it would cost my own life. That’s what a man is called to do, to sacrifice for his family.  Well my ethnic community is my extended family”.

26:52

Dixon at gun training

27:08

Dixon interview

DWAYNE DIXON: “I’m not going to let people fly swastikas freely on the streets of the United States.  If we take this back to my grandfather, he would be appalled.  My dad is appalled.  I mean this is, this is a grotesque… I don’t know --- sneer, essentially. Like it’s just spitting in the face of the efforts of all these men and women who actively fought against fascism.

27:13

Gun training

I mean I’m never going to stand by and let people get hurt”.

[on range] “Fire when ready”. 

27:40

Music

27:48

Credits: 

Reporter - Stephanie March
Producer - Jill Colgan
Camera - Aaron Ernst, John Mees
Editor - Leah Donovan
Assistant Editor - Tom Carr
Additional Footage ACLU, VIRGINIA
 @REBELUTIONARY_Z
@BRENNANGILMORE
Executive Producer - Marianne Leitch

abc.net.au/foreign

© 2018

28:02

Out point after credits

28:25