Meet the League: State Chairmen and Organizers of the League of the South
Hatewatch has previously profiled neo-Confederate League of the South (LOS) President Michael Hill, his Chief of Staff, Michael Tubbs, and various other affiliates and supporters of the organization, including Chief of Security/Intel John Mark “Tiny” Malone.
Presenting itself as the premier “Southern Nationalist” organization, the League purports to stand for “the southern people,” which it defines as “white, Christians of Anglo-Celtic stock” who live in a geographic area variously described as “the states of the Old Confederacy,” “the Bible belt,” and “white man’s land.”
The following is a rundown of several League of the South state chairmen and leaders across the Southeast who are expected to play a role in the upcoming Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally organized by local blogger Jason Kessler this coming Saturday, August 12.
Isaac “Ike” Shelby Baker
Identified by Michael Hill as the “Commander of the Kentucky Southern Defense Force (SDF),” a Facebook profile apparently belonging to Isaac Baker, 57, describes him as a United States Marine Corps veteran and past employee of CSX Transportation from Harlan, Kentucky.
Although Baker has been photographed at various LOS rallies in his local area over the past few years (he places the beginning of his involvement with LOS in 2015), he appears to have become deeply embroiled in the League’s brand of racist organizing and demonstrating after attending an April 2017 rally in Pikeville, Kentucky, organized by Matthew Heimbach and the Traditional Worker’s Party (TWP).
Michael Hill shared this photograph from the Pikeville rally with the caption: “It was my pleasure to finally get to meet and stand with my compatriot Ike Baker [left] in Pikeville.”
After the League’s annual rally in June of this year, Baker shared a Facebook note titled “A Band of Brothers,” that Michael Hill later posted on the League’s website. In the piece, Baker described the shift in his view of himself as a “modern day Cincinnatus, living the rest of my allotted time on this earthly plane as a man of the land,” and praised Hill’s “moving call to fight for the survival of our people.”
Baker’s Facebook profile indicates an affinity for Nazi SS propaganda, including responding to criticisms of “boomers” by encouraging older LOS members to adopt a specific patch used by Nazi Germans to indicate affiliation with the early German National Socialist Party.
“Gentlemen, this is the Alte Kämpfer chevron. I'll be affixing this to the upper right sleeve of my SDF uniform. Other Old Fighters interested, contact me at your convenience.”
As the right has been organizing around “Charlottesville 2.0” in earnest, Michael Hill posted in the League’s Facebook group that he wants “no fewer than 150 League warriors, dressed and ready for action, in Charlottesville, Virginia, on 12 August.”
Baker responded by issuing directives on the League’s uniform dress code and has since actively encouraged membership to attend the event, and advised them on tactics and equipment in expectation of conflict.
Spencer Borum
Identified on the Kentucky League of the South’s website as the chairman of the Kentucky LOS, Spencer Borum, outranks Ike Baker despite his relatively young age of 28 years.
In spite of the Kentucky League of the South’s low membership, which Borum has identified as consisting of just 11 dues-paying members, Borum has apparently attempted to expand his outreach by partnering with hosts at The Right Stuff Confederates’ spinoff website Identity Dixie to host a podcast titled “Radio Free Dixie.”
Seemingly unaware of the similarly titled radio show hosted by North Carolina NAACP president Robert F. Williams while exiled in Cuba during the Civil Rights Movement, the show’s host — who identifies himself as “Barnwell Rhett,” a reference to the Southern Fire-Eater — is referred to by several guests as “Spencer.” “Barnwell Rhett” also identifies himself as a Florida native living in Kentucky, biographical details that match with available records for Spencer Borum.
Borum/Rhett uses his podcast to expound on his racist views and to interview LOS leadership and personalities on the Neo-Confederate fringe of the Alt-Right that has been dubbed the “Alt South.”
In one episode of “Radio Free Dixie” with the pseudonymous Charlie Stewart, who hosts another Identity Dixie podcast titled “Thistle and Briar,” Borum and Stewart identify themselves as veterans and outline the equipment — including firearms, camouflage, armor and training — Alt-Right activists will need in the event of a civil conflict in the United States.
Robert Graf “R.G.” Miller, Jr.
R.G. Miller, 26, is the chairman of the Arkansas League of the South, a role he took on in 2015. Since then Miller has been active in promoting the League both in Harrison, sometimes referred to as the “most racist town in America,” and at League functions in other states.
Miller was part of a small cohort of younger League members who broke from the 2016 LOS “Nationals” conference in Wetumpka, Alabama to attend a nearby Montgomery, Alabama Gay Pride rally where they hurled epithets like “God hates f---.”
More recently, Miller and the Arkansas League hosted a state conference that resulted in a verbal confrontation with a black library employee. Miller has been a frequent speaker at several LOS functions including the 2017 National Conference and attended “the Battle of New Orleans,” along with other LOS members.
Harold Ray Crews
Harold Ray Crews, 48, runs a family law practice out of Kernersville, North Carolina, and lives in nearby Walkertown, where the NC LOS lists its PO Box. Chairman of the NC LOS, Crews also operates the League’s Facebook, website and a podcast titled “Southern Nationalist Radio,” where he frequently interviews Michael Hill, Mark Thomey of the Alabama League of the South, and Brad Griffin, a League of the South member who operates the blog Occidental Dissent.
Crews also runs a YouTube channel where he lists affiliation with both the League of the South and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), a group that has lately been greatly maligned by LOS members as a “’weak sister’ who cannot stand to be called a racist, anti-Semite, xenophobe, white supremacist.”
Crews’ videos make it apparent that he is responsible for filming the League’s national conference, including this past year’s event where Michael Hill shared the stage with notorious ex-Klansman David Duke.
A recent post by Michael Hill on the League’s website outlining “Legal Matters regarding The League of the South’s Participation in the Unite the Right Rally,” included the following:
If you believe an order or command of a public official violates your right to free speech, assembly, or some other matter, report this to our League leaders and we will in turn report to our attorneys on the scene.
While it is unclear how many attorneys the League has among its ranks, it stands to reason that Harold Crews will participate in organizing legal defense for any League members arrested in Charlottesville.
Dennis Durham, Jr.
Dennis Durham, 40, lists himself as the Chairman of the Virginia League of the South. Although that state chapter has not been incredibly active since co-hosting a party with the Maryland state chapter to celebrate the sesquicentennial of John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of President Lincoln, Dennis Durham has been seen lately with Jason Kessler, the organizer of the Unite the Right Charlottesville rally. Kessler and Durham, along with other LOS affiliates, campaigned with Corey Stewart, a Virginia gubernatorial candidate who staked a hard stance in favor of the preservation of Virginia’s Confederate memorials.
Pat Hines
A retired military nurse and resident of Tigerville, South Carolina, Pat Hines appears to have stepped into the role of SC LOS chairman after Michael Cushman abandoned the role in 2015 over fears that the League was becoming too radical in its defense of the Confederate Battle flag (CBF) in the wake of Dylann Roof’s massacre in Charleston.
Hines, on the other hand, was more than willing to defend the CBF, going so far as stating during an interview on CNN that, “without slavery, all the black people in the United States wouldn’t be here,” and referring to the removal of Confederate monuments as “cultural genocide on the Southern people.”
The South Carolina League has been notably inactive under Hines’ leadership. In spite of the recent furor in the state over then-Governor Nikki Haley’s decision to remove the CBF from the Capitol grounds, Hines seems to have had very little interest in rallying to save the banner beyond his televised appearances.
Hines was not present with other LOS members at Richard Spencer’s speech in Auburn, Alabama, or in New Orleans, Louisiana, for the “Battle of New Orleans.” Whether he will be present at the Charlottesville rally remains to be seen. Whether or not he is attending, Hines has posted prolifically on League forums and Brad Griffin’s Occidental Dissent in the run-up to the event.
Thomas Eugene Davis
The Chairman of the Georgia League of the South, Thomas Davis, took over the role after former Chairman William Flowers defected from the LOS to join Matthew Heimbach’s TWP in 2015.
Davis, 50, runs a flooring company, Tom Davis Flooring, out of Alma, Georgia, where he lives.
Aside from his flooring business and League activities, Davis has authored a series of books about a confrontation between “[a] sitting Governor [who] has just designated the President of the United States as an enemy of liberty, a deed that will not go unpunished”.
The most notable activism under Davis’s leadership occurred when Davis organized an abortive demonstration in Grantville, Georgia, in order to capitalize on the brutal murder of an elderly woman against the wishes of her family.
