Tom Metzger
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Thomas L. Metzger (born April 9, 1938) is the leader of the white supremacist group White Aryan Resistance.
Metzger grew up in Indiana. In 1961, he moved to Southern California to work in the electronics industry. For a short time, Metzger was a member of the John Birch Society. During the 1970s, Metzger joined the "Knights of the Ku Klux Klan" which was led by David Duke. Metzger became the Grand Dragon for the State of California. Metzger was also a minister in the Christian Identity movement.
During the summer of 1979, Metzger organized a patrol to capture illegal Mexican immigrants south of Fallbrook, California. Metzger's Klan organization also had a security force which was involved in confrontations with anti-Klan protesters.
Metzger's branch of the Klan split with Duke's organization in 1980 to form the 'California Knights of the Ku Klux Klan'.
In the Summer of 1980, Metzger won the nomination of the Democratic party for the House of Representatives. Metzger, who had changed his party registration from Republican to Democrat earlier in the year, won the primary by 318 votes. The Democratic party refused to support Metzger's candidacy and Metzger lost by over 200,000 votes to the incumbent Representative Clair Burgener.
Metzger left the Klan after the election and formed the "White American Political Association" in order to promote "pro-White" candidates for office. Metzger ran for the United States Senate in 1982, winning almost 76,000 votes (and 2.8% of the vote) in the Democratic Party Primary.
Soon afterwards, Metzger changed the name of his group to "White Aryan Resistance" (or WAR). WAR worked to recruit members though prisons and regarded Christianity to be a form of Judaism.
The group was effectively bankrupted as the result of a civil lawsuit centered around its involvement in the violent death of Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian man who came to the United States to attend college. In 1988, Seraw was murdered by skinheads, who were convicted of the crime and sent to prison.
Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a civil suit against Metzger, arguing that WAR influenced Seraw's murderers by encouraging their group, the "East Side White Pride," to commit violence.
The jury returned the largest civil verdict in Oregon history at the time — $12.5 million against Metzger and WAR, effectively putting the group out of business.
In November 1988, Metzger appeared on an episode of the Geraldo Rivera show in which a brawl broke out and Geraldo's nose was broken by a flying chair.
In 1991, Metzger had to agree to stop selling t-shirts of Bart Simpson in a Nazi uniform with the words "Pure Nazi Dude" on them.
Metzger was convicted in 1991 of burning a cross in 1983 and sentenced to six months in prison and 300 hours community service working with minorities. Metzger was released from prison 46 days into his sentence to be with his critically ill wife.
In 1992, Metzger and his son entered Canada to speak in front of a group named Heritage Front. Soon afterwards, he was arrested for violating Canadian immigration laws by entering the country to "promote racial hatred". Metzger also violated an order made after his 1991 conviction to not leave the United States without permission.
In recent years, Metzger has advocated the 'lone wolf' method of organization for white supremacist groups.
External link
- http://www.resist.com White Aryan Resistance official site
- Nikzor page (http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/american/war/)
- Tom Metzger and White Aryan Resistance (WAR) (http://www.adl.org/learn/Ext_US/Metzger.asp) ADL page
