Hate Radio’s ‘Political Cesspool’ To Shut Down

Citing his father’s illness and “strain on [his] marriage,” James Edwards (below, right), a prominent white nationalist and host of the hate radio program, “The Political Cesspool,” sent out an E-mail to supporters Wednesday with the

subject heading “All Good Things Come To An End.” In it, Edwards announced that he would broadcast his final show on Friday after three years on the air and 865 broadcasts. In a seeming about face, Edwards’ shutdown notice came only 10 weeks after he syndicated the program through Dixie Broadcasting. Dixie Broadcasting is an Internet radio outfit run by Ray McBerry, the chairman of the Georgia chapter of the League of the South, which is a neo-Confederate, white supremacist group. The show was broadcast on the Internet and by WLRM-AM for two hours every weeknight from a studio near Memphis, Tenn., where Edwards grew up and still lives.

Since co-founding “The Political Cesspool” in 2005, Edwards has become a golden boy in white nationalist circles and his show has served as the primary radio nexus of hate in America. Its sponsors included the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) and the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), a leading Holocaust denial organization. And its guest roster for 2007 reads like a “Who’s Who” of the radical racist right, including such people as the leader of the CCC, Gordon Lee Baum; Holocaust denier and IHR chief Mark Weber; neo-Nazi activist April Gaede; and anti-Semitic professor Kevin MacDonald. The show’s most frequent celebrity racist guest is former Klan leader and neo-Nazi ideologue David Duke, who has logged three appearances.

Though he won’t be on the radio anymore, Edwards does not intend to give up his role as a self-described “European American activist,” promising his listeners he would continue to serve actively on the CCC’s board. He also thanked many of the extremists who had been on his show as well as several hate groups that sponsored it. “It’s been a thrill of a lifetime,” Edwards gushed, reminding his racist supporters that he hasn’t given up their cause. “Well, similar to the Great White, I’d die if I were not contributing to the survival of our race.”