Radical Campus Organization Linked to Southern Hate Group

Youth for Western Civilization (YWC), an ultraconservative student group, has long cultivated relationships with white nationalist organizations like American Renaissance, the National Policy Institute and the H.L. Mencken Club. Last spring, it even allowed American Renaissance leader Jared Taylor — who has written that black people are incapable of sustaining any kind of civilization without whites to aid them — to write a fundraising letter, sent out with an accompanying missive from YWC’s president, suggesting that Taylor's followers send YWC money.

But the campus group has insistently, if improbably, denied having any racist views.

Now, the YWC appears to be forging ties with the League of the South (LOS), a neo-Confederate hate group that advocates a second Southern secession and a society dominated by "European Americans." The League believes that the "godly" nation it forms should be run by "Anglo-Celtic" (read: white) elites who would establish a Christian theocratic state and politically dominate non-white people. It leader, Michael Hill, opposes racial intermarriage and has denounced egalitarianism as a “Jacobin” leftist doctrine that undermines healthy societies.

Matthew Heimbach – a member of the League’s Maryland division who attended the League’s recent annual conference in Abbeville, S.C. – appears in a video uploaded to YouTube on July 29 (it has since been taken down, but you can find it here, courtesy of One People's Project). Heimbach appears with another, unnamed Maryland LOS member, who says the Maryland chapter of the LOS will be working with YWC. He also states that YWC has "similar principles as us and similar goals." Heimbach, identified as a junior at Towson State University, then outlines his own goals for YWC, including a Towson State chapter he is planning to start.

According to the July video, Heimbach's plans for his YWC chapter include hosting guest speakers like Pastor John Weaver of the LOS, who instructs League members on how to use firearms, and Maryland LOS chaplain David Whitney, who says churches should help arm and train people in self-defense. Heimbach asks viewers to donate to YWC, which he says is interested in "stopping rampant multiculturalism," "standing against illegal immigration," and a host of other issues that organizations like "the League of the South, the SCV [Sons of Confederate Veterans], and most Southerners can agree on.”

Heimbach has already begun blogging at the YWC website. In a July post about the evils of Islam, he claimed there is an organized network of radical Islamists who are "pushing for Islamic domination over Christianity and the entire Western world." He then calls on "Westerners" to wake up and "organize to resist the destruction of our entire way of life."

In April, Heimbach complained about the lack of media coverage of the New Black Panther marches prior to Easter, attributing it to "political correctness." More likely, the lack of coverage was because of the dismal turnout for the “National Day of Action and Unity.” Nevertheless, Heimbach warns his audience that "we stand on the edge where violence against whites and Jews is not a question of if." As of this writing, the Towson chapter of YWC is not yet active.

Evelyn Schlatter contributed to this posting.