Black activist James Hart Stern takes over US neo-Nazi group National Socialist Movement, vows to destroy it
- The NSM is one of several extremist groups sued over bloodshed at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville
- The group’s members used to attend rallies and protests in full Nazi uniforms
One of America’s largest neo-Nazi groups appears to have an unlikely new leader: a black activist who has vowed to dismantle it.
Court documents filed on Thursday suggest James Hart Stern wants to use his new position as director and president of the National Socialist Movement to undermine the Detroit-based group’s defence against a lawsuit.
The NSM is one of several extremist groups sued over bloodshed at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Stern’s filing asks a federal court in Virginia to issue a judgment against the group before one of the lawsuits goes to trial.
Stern replaced Jeff Schoep as the group’s leader in January, according to Michigan corporate records.
But those records and court documents say nothing about how or why Stern got the position. His feat invited comparisons to the recent Spike Lee movie “BlacKkKlansman” in which a black police officer infiltrates a branch of the Ku Klux Klan.