Early anti-integration organizing in Atlanta styled itself openly on Nazi fascism

Evidence

The first segregationist organization to “defend” Ashby Street called itself the Columbians, Inc. The origins of the name remain unclear, but the founders likely drew inspiration from “Hail, Columbia!,” a Revolutionary War anthem that often played at their rallies. While the Columbians claimed to be a “patriotic and political group” inspired by an earlier generation of Americans, the organization derived greater inspiration from another, more recent source—Nazi Germany. Indeed, the founders, Emory Burke and Homer Loomis, proudly styled themselves fascists. … With the war’s end, Burke and Loomis launched their crusade. “Atlanta is the logical place to start something,” Loomis reasoned. “The South comes by its racial convictions instinctively.” Thus, in 1946 they founded the fascist Columbians there. Dressed in khaki army uniforms with a red lightning bolt insignia, its members soon spread across the city, conducting military marches and drilling in the streets. … In an ambitious scheme, they hoped to take control of the city in six months, the state in two years, the whole South in four years, and the entire United States within a decade. “There is no end to what we can do through the ballot,” Loomis explained. “If we want to bury all niggers in the sand, once we come to power we can pass laws enabling us to bury all niggers in the sand!” — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 110

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to later chapters’ argument that segregationist ideology self-consciously reinvented itself in respectable terms — this is the raw, unabashed starting point before the ‘color-blind’ rebranding. — connects to: Outsider groups serve as involuntary conduits for fascism’s own taboo impulses — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 145; Left-originated syndicalism became a powerful organizing tool of the fascist right — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 262; Tolerant moderates’ politeness enabled the rise of Nazism — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 284 (+1 more)
• CANDY: “I’m going to be the Hitler of America” with friends greeting ‘Heil, Loomis!’ is a striking, darkly absurd detail that lands on its own.

Broader Connections

• Left-originated syndicalism became a powerful organizing tool of the fascist right #corroborates (0.78) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 262
• Tolerant moderates’ politeness enabled the rise of Nazism #qualifies (0.73) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 284
• Outsider groups serve as involuntary conduits for fascism’s own taboo impulses #expands (0.72) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 145
• Pan-Germanism proposed legal-free arrest years before the Nazis adopted it #exemplifies (0.72) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2450