Richard Spencer

Overview

Richard Spencer [Richard B. Spencer] is a white nationalist leader, who headlined the August 2017 white nationalist ‘Unite the Right’ rally, in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has also led additional white nationalist rallies, promoted hatred while speaking on university campuses, used Nazi references to appeal to his supporters and spread anti-Semitism.

Spencer was banned from entering the United Kingdom in 2016, because he reportedly could “foster hatred.” He was also reportedly arrested in Hungary in 2014 and banned from the European Union for three years, for efforts to whole a white supremacist conference.

In 2016, Spencer was affiliated with the white nationalist campus organization Identity Evropa, which rebranded itself in March 2019 as the American Identity Movement (AIM).

In 2020, Spencer was “American editor” of the website Altright.com. Spencer was also President and Creative Director of the white nationalist think tank, the National Policy Institute (NPI), dedicated to the future of people of European descent in the United States and around the world.” Spencer was also the founder of radixjournal.com, published by NPI. 

“Unite the Right” Rally

On August 12, 2017, Spencer headlined the “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville.


The day before, Spencer indicated on Twitter that he attended a march, which was part of the Unite the Right rally, at the University of Virginia (UVA) that featured Nazi chants. 

White nationalists at the march carried torches- reminiscent of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) cross burnings - and chanted: “You will not replace us.” Some marchers were reported to have also chanted: “Jew will not replace us!” as well as: “one people, one nation, end immigration!”

The march ended with several marchers using their torches as weapons against counter-protesters. Police then shut down the event, declaring it an “unlawful assembly.” Following the violence, marchers chanted “White Lives Matter!” and “Anti-White!” at the counter-protesters.

Marchers also chanted “Blood and Soil!” — an English variation of a popular Nazi-era German chant “blut und boden.” Multiple marchers made Nazi salutes and the chant “Sieg heil” was reportedly heard. 

On November 3, 2019, right wing political provocateur, Milo Yiannopoulos leaked audio via Youtube of Spencer following the death of Heather Heyer, who was killed in August 2017 at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.

Spencer said [00:01:26]: “We are coming back here like a hundred f**king times. I am so mad. I am so f**king mad at these people. They don’t do this to f**king me. We are going to f**king ritualistically humiliate them.” 

Spencer continued [00:01:40]: “I am coming back here every f**king weekend if I have to. Like this is never over. I win! They f**king lose! That’s how the world f**king works.”
 
Spencer added [00:01:50]: “Little f**king kikes. They get ruled by people like me. Little f**king octoroons ... I f**king ... my ancestors f**king enslaved those little pieces of f**king s**t. I rule the f**king world.” 
 
“Octoroon” was a racial classification given in slave societies in the Americas to someone who was one-eighth black.
 
Spencer went to say [00:02:03]: “Those pieces of f**king s**t get ruled by people like me. They look up and see a face like mine looking down at them. That’s how the f**king world works. We are going to destroy this f**king town.”

White Nationalist Rallies

On October 7, 2017, Spencer spoke alongside white nationalist and activist, Mike Peinovich, at a surprise rally in Charlottesville,to a crowd of White Nationalists holding tiki-torches at the foot of the shrouded Robert E. Lee statue. 

Spencer posted a video from the rally on PSCP.TV. The video showed Peinovich saying [00:07:36]: “Hello, Charlottesville; we’re back and we have a message. We’re back, and we’re going to keep coming back. You will not replace us. You will not erase us.”

Spencer then said [00:07:51]: “Charlottesville, your city has become symbolic, it has become symbolic of the oppression of speech…That is, our speech...Your city has become symbolic for the tearing down of the symbols of the history of this nation. The history of our people, of white people, of Virginia…and of the South and of the entire United States.” 

On May 13, 2017, Spencer reportedly led several dozen White nationalist protesters, holding tiki-torches, who gathered in Charlottesville’s Lee Park to protest selling the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which stands in the park.

The protesters reportedly chanted slogans including: “You will not replace us,” as well as “Russia is our friend” and “Blood and soil.” 

The crowd reportedly dispersed ten minutes after the rally began, when police arrived “following an altercation between protesters.”

Promoting Hate on Campus

On April 18, 2017, Spencer was reportedly brought to Auburn University (Auburn), not by a student group, but by Padgett, who had reserved the hall on campus. 

Auburn reportedly initially cancelled Spencer’s speech over “safety concerns,” but later won a court case that enabled him to speak. 

Spencer began [00:04:27] his speech echoing the phrase “hail victory” (the English variation of the Nazi slogan “Sieg heil”) and praising the court case against the university that allowed him to hold the talk.

Spencer continued: [00:04:32]: “We won a victory that’s going to have echoes around the world. I don’t mean echoes the way you mean echoes.”

Spencer’s mention of “echoes” referred an anti-Semitic trope used by white nationalists online, where they put three parentheses around a (((name))) to indicate the person named is a Jew. Echoes can often be found in the comments sections of Altright.com articles.

Spencer also said during his speech [00:26:24] that whites are “obviously losing” an “ongoing demographic struggle that we are experiencing” and that [00:28:25]: “The white race is undergoing an ongoing civil war.”

Spencer then chastised [00:30:20] Auburn for recruiting black football players, who he called: “not the greatest exemplars of the African race.” He alleged these football players had carried out “sexual abuse of white women on campus.”   

White nationalist supporters outside the lecture hall were met by counter-protesters and three people were arrested for fighting. 

Spencer also spoke [00:34:50] about “an eternal black cloud” hanging over white people, preventing them from embracing their identity and greatness. 

He defined the “cloud” as a need for white people to talk about violence committed against other groups, including Jim Crow, slavery, the Holocaust, violence against Native Americans, colonialism and misogyny, which he described as comprising “an eternal guilt trip.”

Spencer recalled [00:37:01] that the white people had taken the land of the Native Americans by violence and said [00:37:17] he was “willing to own that” because [00:37:30] white people “took this country” because they “wanted it” and had “a will” to build something in their image” and they “did it.” 

Spencer went on [00:37:47] to say: “I’m willing to own slavery. I’m willing to own the terrible things that the white race has committed against other races and, to be honest, I’m willing to own those terrible things that whites have done to other whites...I’m willing to own it because I understand our power.”

On August 14, 2017, Texas A&M University (Texas A&M) cancelled a “White Lives Matter” rally originally planned for September 11th, 2017, that would have featured Spencer as a speaker. The University cited: “safety” concerns for the cancellation. 

Texas A&M previously hosted Spencer in December 2016, amid strong safety concerns.

Following the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally, Michigan State University (MSU), was one of multiple universities that declined to host Spencer.

MSU ultimately agreed to host Spencer, after Cameron Padgett, a supporter who in October 2017 reportedly ran Spencer’s Periscope live video application, sued MSU to allow Spencer to speak.

Padgett reportedly hired Kyle Bristow, the founder of the think-tank the “Foundation for the Marketplace of Ideas (FMI),” to represent Padgett and Spencer. MSU settled the case brought by Padgett and agreed to let Spencer speak in March 2018, during the school’s spring break.
 
Also in 2017, following the rally in Charlottesville, Spencer spoke at the University of Florida (UF). Padgett also booked the space for Spencer to speak at UF. The University initially refused to host Spencer on campus, but ultimately allowed the event when Padgett and attorney Gary Edinger threatened UF with a lawsuit. 

Using Nazi References

On November 19, 2016, Spencer gave [00:00:30] a speech at the NPI’s annual conference, where he said: “The mainstream media, or perhaps we should refer to them in the original German, ‘Lugenpresse.’” 

The term “Lugenpresse,” which means “lying press” in German, was a common Nazi slogan. 

Spencer also cried [00:00:00] “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!” and supporters gave Nazi salutes. “Hail victory,” as stated above, is the English variation of the Nazi slogan “Sieg heil.”   

The Washington Post reported that Spencer told supporters at NPI’s annual conference: “Let’s party like it’s 1933,” a reference to the year that Hitler won power in Germany. 

Spreading Anti-Semitism

On August 11, 2017, Spencer published an article on Altright.com, titled: “What It Means To Be Alt-Right.” 

The first section in Spencer’s article was titled: “Race,” where he stated: “Race is real. Race matters. Race is the foundation of identity. ‘White’ is shorthand for a worldwide constellation of peoples, each of which is derived from the Indo-European race, often called Aryan.”

The second section in Spencer’s article was titled: “Jews,” Jews were the only group mentioned by name and distinguished from Whites and Europeans in the article. 

The section stated: “Jews are an ethno-religious people distinct from Europeans. At various times, they have existed within European societies, without being of them. ...‘Judeo-Christian values’ might be a quaint political slogan, but it is a distortion of the historical and metaphysical reality of both Jews and Europeans.”

On July 4, 2017, Spencer shared an image on Twitter suggesting Jewish control over the CNN News Network.

On June 18, 2017, Spencer tweeted: “Greg Johnson on how the Jews created homophobia and prevented Aryans from being pansexual. Very creepy stuff.” 

Spencer’s tweet linked to an article in the white nationalist publication, counter-currents.com, that stated: “Because of the distorting lens of the Jewish media, it is easy to think that all homosexuals are promoters of the Jewish agenda. And leftist gays really are repulsive.” 

On June 10, 2017, Spencer tweeted: “How could [U.S. President] Trump cut essential government services like the Holocaust industry?”

On May 23, 2017, Spencer tweeted: “I am wandering the earth looking for a new gym. So this is what feels like to be a Jew... .”

On May 6, 2017, Spencer tweeted: “There's a long tradition of Jews reserving the Holocaust as *the* extra special, sacred genocide.”

Spencer retweeted a tweet from August 1, 2017, that read: “‘The Big Lie’ is an example of the big lie. Hitler never advocated such a thing. He claimed in Mein Kampf that was Jewish behavior.”

The August 1, 2017 tweet, embedded another tweet, from Dinesh D’Souza about his new book titled: “The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left.”