Extremism is alive — and thriving — in Texas.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), nearly 100 groups dedicated to hate and anti-government ideals called the Lone Star State home by the end of 2023; only California and Florida surpassed Texas with 117 and 114 groups, respectively. Eighteen of those groups operate statewide, the nonprofit civil rights organization claims, and over a dozen are headquartered in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The SPLC has published a census of hate groups each year since 1990, and the data shows that Texas is growing more extreme with each passing year. In 2015, the group found 84 active hate groups across the state compared to the most recently recorded 97; in 2005, the SPLC identified 45 groups across Texas. The 2024 Hate Map should be released sometime in the summer, and if Texas continues its current trajectory we will likely become the third state to record hate groups in the hundreds.
This comes on the heels of other organizations dedicated to tracking oppression noting a rise in extremist beliefs across Texas. In early 2023, a report by the Anti-Defamation League found that Texas is the No. 1 state for white supremacist propaganda and some of the largest hate groups nationally have deep roots in the Lone Star State.
Hate groups are defined by the SPLC as organizations that “attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics,” while anti-government groups “believe the federal government is tyrannical and traffics in conspiracy theories about an illegitimate government of leftist elites seeking a ‘New World Order.’” (The SPLC's reporting on "hate" and "anti-government" groups has been frequently criticized by some for unfairly targeting groups that take conservative or faith-based positions.)
Organizations Operating in North Texas
The SPLC found 16 groups based out of North Texas, some of which have multiple chapters in the area. Half of the groups are defined as being antigovernment and half as being hate organizations.
Here is how the SPLC defines each group’s ideological type, and the location of each organization in North Texas.
“Anti-government groups are part of the antidemocratic hard-right movement. They believe the federal government is tyrannical, and they traffic in conspiracy theories about an illegitimate government of leftist elites seeking a “New World Order.” In addition to groups that generally espouse these ideas, the movement is composed of sovereign citizens, militias, overt conspiracy propagandists and constitutional sheriff groups.”
- American Patriot Vanguard — Fort Worth
- Citizens Defending Freedom — Chapters in Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties
- Constitution Party — Fort Worth
- Eagle Forum — Dallas
- Mom Army — Dallas-Fort Worth
- Moms for Liberty — Chapters in Collin and Denton counties. The SPLC defines Moms for Liberty as a “far-right organization” that “grew out of opposition to public health regulations for COVID-19, opposes LGBTQ+ and racially inclusive school curriculum, and has advocated books bans.”
- Tactical Civics — Chapters in Denton and Parker counties
- True Texas Project — Tarrant County
“Militia groups are characterized by their obsession with field training exercises (FTXs), guns, uniforms typically resembling those worn in the armed forces and a warped interpretation of the Second Amendment.”
- Patriots for America — Dallas; This militia group has been criticized for partnering with law enforcement groups on the Texas-Mexico border, working to question and detain individuals who have crossed the border illegally. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas has called for the Justice Department to investigate the organization’s involvement with handling migrants.
“Conspiracy propagandist groups aim to delegitimize government institutions or government officials by stoking fears concerning door-to-door gun confiscations, martial law, supposed takeover of the U.S. by the “New World Order” and anxieties around the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).”
- John Birch Society — DFW Chapter. In 2022, the Texas Observer reported that the foothold of the “ultraconservative, conspiratorially minded” John Birch Society was strengthening in North Texas. The group was founded on once outlandish ideals that have slowly been adopted by mainstream conservatives, such as decrying the use of fluoride in drinking water.
- Silver Bear Cafe — Garland
“[General Hate Groups] peddle a combination of well-known hate and conspiracy theories, in addition to unique bigotries that are not easily categorized. Several of the groups seek to profit off their bigotry by selling hate materials from several different sectors of the white supremacist movement.”
- New Black Panther Party for Self Defense — Dallas; The SPLC defines the organization as a “bigoted, anti-white, antisemitic Black Nationalist” group. The New Black Panther Party for Self Defense has expressed extreme vitriol for members of the LGBTQ community, Jewish individuals and white people.
- Onebody in Yahawashi — Dallas
“A central theme of anti-LGBTQ organizing and ideology is the opposition to LGBTQ rights or support of homophobia, heterosexism and/or cisnormativity often expressed through demonizing rhetoric and grounded in harmful pseudoscience that portrays LGBTQ people as threats to children, society and often public health.”
- Probe Ministries — Plano
- Stedfast Baptist Church — Cedar Hill
“For ‘radical traditionalist’ Catholics, antisemitism is an inextricable part of their theology. They subscribe to an ideology that is rejected by the Vatican and some 70 million mainstream American Catholics.”
- Christ or Chaos — Corsicana
“Anti-Muslim hate groups broadly defame Islam and traffic in conspiracy theories of Muslims being a subversive threat to the nation. These groups largely appeared after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and mix racism and anti-immigrant ideas.”
- Understanding the Threat — Dallas. Founded by a former FBI agent, John Guandolo, Understanding the Threat is dedicated to running Islamophobic trainings and activities, the SPLC says. In a blog, Guandolo once wrote he believes “ ALL of the prominent Islamic organizations in the United States are a part of a well-organized coordinated effort to undermine America's founding principles, Constitution, laws, and civil society.”
Organizations Operating Statewide:
Anti-government
- Overpasses for America
- Parents’ Rights in Education
- Texas Parents Involved in Education
- We Are Change
Militia Movement
- Texas Three Percenters
- This is Texas Freedom Force
General Hate
- American Nationalist Initiative
Anti-LGBTQ
- Mass Resistance
Other Extremist Groups
“Neo-Nazi groups share a hatred for Jews and a love for Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. While they also hate nonwhite people, LGBTQ people and even sometimes Christians, they perceive “the Jew” as their cardinal enemy.”
- 14 First
- American National Socialist Party
- Aryan Freedom Network
- Order of the Black Sun
Neo-Völkisch: “Born out of an atavistic defiance of modernity and rationalism, present-day neo-Völkisch, or Folkish, adherents and groups are organized around ethnocentricity and archaic notions of gender.”
- Asatru Folk Assembly
Constitutional Sheriffs: “The origins of constitutional sheriff ideology lie in the two concepts of the county supremacy movement: The county – not the state or federal governments – should control all land within its borders, and the county sheriff should be the ultimate law enforcement authority in the U.S.”
- Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association
“Antisemitic hate groups seek to racialize Jewish people and vilify them as the manipulative puppet masters behind an economic, political and social scheme to undermine white people.”
- Goyim Defense League
“White nationalist groups espouse white supremacist or white separatist ideologies, often focusing on the alleged inferiority of people of color. They frequently claim that white people are unfairly persecuted by society and even the victims of a racial genocide.”
- National Justice Party
- New Columbia Movement
- Patriot Front
