Last week the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released its report on The Year in Hate & Extremism 2021.
The SPLC tracked 733 hate groups in the US including 53 hate groups in Florida.
In an online press conference last week, Susan Corke, Intelligence Project Director at SPLC said, “hate and extremist ideas are operating more openly in the mainstream.”
SPLC’s Hate Map
SPLC’s “Hate Map” shows what the SPLC defines as extremist and hate groups in a map. That includes these groups with ties to the Tampa Bay area:
- America First Foundation, white nationalists in St. Petersburg
- American Christian Dixie Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, statewide
- Bill Keller Ministries, general hate, St. Petersburg
- Florida Family Association, anti-Muslim, Tampa
- Great Millstone, general hate, Tampa and elsewhere
- Nation of Islam, antiSemitism, St. Pete, Tampa and elsewhere
- New Black Panther Party for Self Defense, Tampa and Jax
- Proud Boys in Sarasota, Tampa and elsewhere
- Sicarii 1715 in Tampa and elsewhere
- Will2Rise, white nationalists, Lakeland
Hate and extremist groups
Other topics covered in the report on hate groups and extremists are the anti-government extremist movement, the Proud Boys, antisemitic hate (including fliers like were seen in Sarasota recently) and the mainstreaming of hate.
Besides experts from the SPLC, we also heard U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) speaking about resources that exist to confront hate.
