United States

Stanislav Vysotsky

Antifascism in the United States

The struggle against the far-right in the United States serves as a form of proto-antifascism that predates the formal beginnings of fascism. For many contemporary antifa activists, the roots of resistance to the far right lie in the anti- slavery abolitionist movement, especially its most militant actors. The abolitionists who took up arms to fight against slavery as well as slave revolts serve as an inspiration for the militant resistance of antifa activism. Of particular note is John Brown’s failed attempt to foment an armed insurrection and popular slave revolt in Virginia. Brown’s cross-racial solidarity and dogged commitment to abolition serves as an inspiration to contemporary antifascists and is celebrated throughout the movement in the United States.

After the abolition of slavery in the wake of the Civil War, the possibility of racial equality as well as a burgeoning labor movement was met with severe reaction from the far right, which historian Robert Paxton considers a form of proto-fascism. The most enduring formation of this reaction was the founding of the Ku Klux Klan as an organization that terrorized Black people and their white allies. Through acts of racial violence, the Klan served to impose the racial order established by chattel slavery. For antifascists, the popular, militant resistance to the Klan that developed in Black communities serves as another source of inspiration. The self-organization of Black communities for mutual defense against the violence of the Klan represents the kind of direct democratic, popular resistance to the far right that antifa activists advocate. This continued resistance through the Jim Crow era, the struggles of the Civil Rights movement, and into the present is a key aspect of American antifascist struggle.

With the rise of fascism in the interwar, the first explicitly antifascist movements in the United States were formed. Some of the earliest resistance to 20^th century fascism in the U.S. came from the Italian American and Italian exile community where leftists tried to counter the manufactured positive image of Mussolini presented by his government and American supporters. Italian officials who attempted to tour the U.S. to promote the regime were frequently resisted by members of the Italian community who counter-protested events and frequently clashed with fascist supporters. In 1923, The Anti-Fascist Alliance of North America was formed by Italian radicals who sought to oppose the influence of fascism in the Italian community and America more broadly. This group organized antifascist rallies and militant confrontations with fascist supporters. Opposition to Italian fascism was also organized in the black community in solidarity with the nation of Ethiopia which was invaded by Mussolini’s regime in 1935. As one of only two independent African nations at the time, Ethiopia held great symbolic importance to the American Black community, so the invasion was seen as an important struggle for Black liberation. Solidarity with Ethiopia was framed as a key front in the struggle against fascism.

As Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany and created a formal alliance with Mussolini, fascist and Nazi organizations formed across the United States. While today the American Legion may be viewed as a banal veteran’s organization, in the 1920s and 30s it was a blatantly far-right authoritarian group that stood in opposition to left wing organizing in the 1920s, with its leadership explicitly describing it as the American version of the Italian Blackshirts. The Silver Legion fused evangelical Protestantism with the antisemitism, anti-Black racism, and anti-communism of other fascist organizations. Like their Italian and German fascist counterparts, militant members of this group wore distinct uniforms consisting of silver shirts with a red L over the wearer’s heart that symbolized “Love, Loyalty, and Liberation.” Father Charles Coughlin, a far-right Catholic priest and radio star, organized the antisemitic Christian Front, which called for boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses, attacked Jewish people, and began paramilitary training. A series of organizations represented the German Nazi party in the United States with the final and most notorious being the German American Bund. At its peak, the Bund organized a rally in Madison Square Garden that was attended by 20,000 supporters. All of these organizations were vigorously resisted by antifascists.

Antifascist activists frequently clashed with supporters of the various fascist groups across the country. Fascist meetings were routinely raided by antifascists who attacked attendees and smashed furniture. The American Jewish community in particular organized in self-defense against fascist violence. Among the most notorious Jewish antifascists were leaders of organized criminal gangs such as Meyer Lansky, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, and Meyer “Mickey” Cohen who recruited their strongest compatriots to attack meetings of the Bund and other fascist groups in defense of the Jewish community. The Communist party was also at the forefront of interwar antifascist activism, publishing several newspapers as well as establishing a number of openly antifascist organizations. The symbolic peak of interwar antifascism was the antifascist rally of 100,000 counter-protesters organized in opposition to the Madison Square Garden rally staged by the Bund. The antifascist protesters clashed with police and Bund supporters, while inside Isadore Greenbaum, stormed the stage and attacked Bund leader Fritz Kuhn in an act of futile antifascist defiance. While Greenbaum was able to strike the would-be American Fuhrer, he was set upon by Bund security who beat him mercilessly and then was further beaten by the NYPD officers who arrested him. His act, however, was seen as an important stand against the growing influence of fascism in the U.S. The Bund collapsed after its leader was arrested for financial mismanagement of the organization and fascist groups dwindled after the United States entered the Second World War.

In the post-war period, the Civil Rights movement became the chief antifascist struggle in the United States. While it is generally remembered as a pacifist movement that rejected violence, the struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and 60s had a distinctly confrontational strategy that was meant to point out the authoritarian violence of racism. A lesser-known history of this struggle was the tradition of Black self-defense discussed earlier. Individuals – including Martin Luther King, Jr. – and organizations such as the Deacons for Defense and local chapters of the NAACP engaged in armed self-defense against the potential for white racist violence. This tradition would later inform the militant stance of the Black Panther Party (BPP) who also asserted their right to open carry firearms in defiance of the racist political order. For the BPP, the actions of police and the white supremacist system that organized American society were labeled as fascism, which made their organizing efforts distinctly antifascist.

Taking their cue from the analysis provided by the BPP and other anti-imperialist revolutionary movements, the radical flank of the student protest movement of the 1960s also identified the actions of the U.S. during the Vietnam war era as a manifestation of fascism. For these movements, the fight against the state was also a fight against fascism. It is also during this period of the late 1960s and 1970s that the concept of fascism became watered down in American culture and consciousness. The countercultural movements that developed at this time often dubbed any restrictions on lifestyle practices as a kind of authoritarianism associated with fascism. In American popular consciousness, fascism became synonymous with illiberalism or authoritarianism, so opposing fascism meant a kind of symbolic anti-authoritarianism, which still plagues the antifascist movement in the United States.

The late 1970s represent a key turning point in American antifascism. Organizers from the Communist Workers’ Party who had been working in factories in the Greensboro, NC area were beginning to build momentum in their efforts to create a radical organization among the working-class. However, they recognized that racism served as a key challenge to their organizing efforts; specifically, the activities of the local Klan. In July of 1979, members of the CWP successfully disrupted and shut down a Klan rally and screening of the notorious propaganda film Birth of a Nation. On the heels of this successful action, the CWP organized a march in November under the banner “Death to the Klan.” In response, local Klansmen and members of the American Nazi Party organized a “United Racist Front” to oppose the antifascist march. On November 3^rd, as marchers gathered and prepared for the event, several vehicles full of Klansmen approached the event and opened fire. Some of the antifascist attempted to return fire, but in the end five protesters were murdered and 10 more were seriously injured. The “Greensboro massacre” served as a tragic lesson for antifascist activists. It has been speculated that the lack of law enforcement intervention on that day may have been driven by a desire to repress the activities of the CWP. The Klan served as a useful tool to that end. While local and federal law enforcement had informants who participated in the “United Racist Front” and knew of their plans, they did nothing to stop the attack and possibly encouraged it.

The late 1970s and 1980s represented a transition in American antifascism into its contemporary era. At the heart of this shift was the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee (JBAKC), which was formed by former members of the Weather Underground as well as other Maoist and far-left activists. This organization, which consisted of primarily white people, worked in solidarity with the Black liberation movement to confront and oppose white racism. The JBAKC took a militant stance against the far right by organizing confrontational counter-protests of fascist rallies and events and publishing an antifascist newspaper initially called “Death to the Klan” that was renamed “No KKK – No Fascist USA,” which was taken from a lyric by the punk band MDC. The JBAKC strategy of building community ties brought it into the subcultures where youth were resisting fascist organizing and allowed it to spread a militant antifascist message to a wider audience. This tie to punk subculture also provided resources, such as fundraising efforts and supporters who could mobilize against the far right. In Chicago, the group was able to mobilize over 1200 people to militantly confront a Klan march, and they were a steadfast counter to local skinhead gangs who tried to organize in the city. The militant stance of the JBAKC would serve as a model for antifascist organizing in the United States in the decades that followed.

By the early 1980s, the fascist movement made a strategic shift in its organizing efforts to target young, alienated white people. Using subcultural aesthetics and merchandise, the far right tried to present itself as a rebellious stance against a mainstream culture that embraced basic notions of equality based on gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation. In punk, skinhead, metal, and other subcultures, the fascist movement saw a ready-made audience of disaffected youth. These organizing efforts, however, did not go unchallenged. Subcultural antifascism was extremely prevalent among punks who saw fascism as an affront to their anti-authoritarianism. In 1981, the Dead Kennedys released their single “Nazi Punks Fuck Off,” which serves as an antifascist anthem to this day. The record sleeve featured a silk screened crossed out swastika and came with an arm band that had the same image as well as the title of the song. The symbolism and sentiment would be shared by many other bands and individual punks across the country and to the present day. Punk antifascism, however, was largely sporadic and decentralized.

By the late 1980s, however, small, localized groups of punks and skinheads began to organize into explicit forms of antifascist resistance. In 1987 a multi-racial and multi-ethnic group of skinheads in New York formed Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) in response to the moral panic over Nazi skinheads that was spreading across the country, fueled by television talk shows that often gave the racists an open platform to spread their message. SHARP wanted to reclaim the traditional origins of the skinhead subculture that has its roots in multi-racial, working-class adaptation of Jamaican Rude Boy subculture and ska music. The group openly opposed racist skinheads, whom they referred to as boneheads because of their abandonment of the values of traditional skinhead subculture, using violence when necessary to eject the racists from shows and other subcultural spaces. SHARP spread throughout the country and globally through networks of fanzines, affiliated bands, and travelling skinheads. SHARP had no formal structure, which served as an organizing strength. Aside from a post office box in New York, there was no central organization. Anyone who identified subculturally as a skinhead and rejected racism could identify as a SHARP. This allowed it to spread quickly within the subculture and build as a form of resistance against boneheads and far-right organizing.

These diffuse subcultural tendencies in American antifascism became formalized in the Anti-Racist Action (ARA) network. In late 1987, an anti-racist skinhead crew from Minneapolis known as the Baldies began to coordinate with like-minded skinheads in Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and across the Midwest. Initially known as “the syndicate,” this group would develop into the ARA network by the early 1990s. Modeled after European Anti-Fascist Action groups, the network chose to use racism in the name because fascism didn’t have the same political understanding in the U.S. as discussed earlier, even though some member groups used antifascist in their name. ARA was able to spread quickly because of its network structure and ties to the punk and skinhead subcultures as well as connections to anarchist and Marxist organizations. To join ARA, an individual or group simply had to adhere to its core “Points of Unity:”

1. We go where they go. Whenever fascists are organizing or active in public, we’re there. We don’t believe in ignoring them or staying away from them. Never let the Nazis have the street!

2. We don’t rely on the cops or courts to do our work for us. This doesn’t mean we never go to court, but the cops uphold white supremacy and the status quo. They attack us and everyone who resists oppression. We must rely on ourselves to protect ourselves and stop the fascists.

3. Non-sectarian defense of other anti-fascists. In ARA, we have a lot of different groups and individuals. We don’t agree about everything and we have a right to differ openly. But in this movement an attack on one is an attack on us all. We stand behind each other.

4. We support abortion rights and reproductive freedom. ARA intends to do the hard work necessary to build a broad, strong movement against racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, discrimination against the disabled, the oldest, the youngest and the most oppressed people. We want a classless, free society. We intend to win!

Using this model of organizing, ARA was able to quickly expand into a militant antifascist force that included dozens of chapters and thousands of individual supporters. This allowed the network to actively confront the Klan as well as prominent neo-Nazi organizations like the National Alliance and World Church of the Creator (currently known as the Creativity movement). ARA members would travel on a monthly or even weekly basis to confront fascist rallies throughout the country, and confrontations with boneheads by ARA affiliated punks and skinheads were a routine part of these subcultures. The legacy of this organization continues in some of the antifascist organizing in the United States to this day.

The shift from Anti-Racist Action to antifa in the United States began in the early 2000s. The Northeast Antifascist group, colloquially referred to as Northeast Antifa by its members and supporters, formed in Boston in 2002. Although the group was affiliated with ARA, its members chose to use antifascist because some of them came from European antifa activist backgrounds and in response to the critique that ARA didn’t confront institutional racism favoring populist white supremacist mobilizations. Inspired by this shift in naming as well as similar ties to European antifascism, Rose City Antifa (RCA), the first group to use the shortened name, was founded in Portland in 2007. RCA also affiliated with the ARA network at a time when the American antifascist movement was in a lull in part due to its success in confronting the far right. Despite its liberal reputation, Portland and other nearby cities had active neo-Nazi skinhead groups and active Holocaust deniers. RCA mounted vigorous, and often controversial campaigns of public shaming and protest that served to undermine fascist organizing efforts in the region.

Over time, individual groups within the remnants of the ARA network adopted the antifascist label and used it in their names. Motivated by these nominal changes as well as a clear focus on naming, shaming, and confronting the far right, several groups affiliated with the ARA network formed the Torch Antifa Network in 2013. With its roots in ARA, the Torch Network developed similar points of unity:

1. We disrupt fascist and far right organizing and activity.

3. We oppose all forms of oppression and exploitation. We intend to do the hard work necessary to build a broad, strong movement of oppressed people centered on the working class against racism, sexism, nativism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and discrimination against the disabled, the oldest, the youngest, and the most oppressed people. We support abortion rights and reproductive freedom. We want a classless, free society. We intend to win!

4. We hold ourselves accountable personally and collectively to live up to our ideals and values.

5. We not only support each other within the network, but we also support people outside the network who we believe have similar aims or principles. An attack on one is an attack on all.

The Torch Network remains the most formal antifascist presence in the United States, with explicit chapters and membership criteria.

With the campaign and election of Donald Trump to his first term, fascists in the U.S. felt emboldened to mobilize and publicly recruit. Antifascists quickly responded with counter-protests across the country. In the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland, clashes between antifascists and far-right demonstrators became commonplace in 2017, and antifa began to become a household word as liberals debated the ethics of “punching Nazis” and whether fascists should be included in the right to free speech.

However, it was the antifascist response to the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville that would give American antifa activists a brief moment of public support. Organized ostensibly to “defend” a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee that was slated for removal by the city, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, members of the “alt-right”, and other assorted fascists planned to gather in the city for a rally on August 12^th. The night before the planned rally, groups of neo-Nazis organized a torch march, holding tiki torches and chanting slogans like “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil.” The fascist march culminated at the statue where a small group of determined antifascists made up of University of Virginia students and their supporters attempted to confront them. The antifascists were attacked by the torch wielding Nazis but were able to survive the attack. Their action served as distraction for the fascists who planned to march to a church where anti-racists were rallying at the time and attack it. By becoming a target for the fascists, these antifascist activists potentially prevented violence against the anti-racists rallying nearby. Many Americans were shocked by the images of this march and fascist violence. The next day would serve as an even greater wake up call.

On August 12^th, the various factions of the far right who came to Charlottesville gathered for their march and rally. They were, however, confronted by a massive number of antifascist counterdemonstrators. For a brief moment, antifa activists were heroes for confronting the violence of the far right. Militant antifascists protected their non-militant comrades from fascist violence. Dr. Cornel West described one such scenario:

The neofascists had their own ammunition. And this is very important to keep in mind, because the police, for the most part, pulled back. The next day, for example, those 20 of us who were standing, many of them clergy, we would have been crushed like cockroaches if it were not for the anarchists and the anti-fascists who approached, over 300, 350 anti-fascists. We just had 20. And we’re singing “This Little light of Mine,” you know what I mean?… The anti-fascists, and then, crucial, the anarchists, because they saved our lives, actually. We would have been completely crushed, and I’ll never forget that.

Antifa activists successfully routed the fascist marches in large, dramatic, and violent confrontations. The scheduled fascist rally never took place as police cancelled their event. Antifascists declared victory that day while President Trump seemed to express sympathy for the fascists by stating that there were “some very fine people on both sides.” The antifascist victory turned to tragedy when James Alex Fields, who had marched with the fascist group Vanguard America, plowed his car into a group of antifascist marchers leaving the protest, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 other people. Heyer is a now considered an antifascist martyr and a symbol of the victory against the far right that day.

In the immediate wake of the confrontation in Charlottsville, antifa activists enjoyed a brief window of public support. A far-right rally that was scheduled in Boston the following weekend drew only about one hundred attendees, but was met with an estimated 40,000 or more antifascist counterdemonstrators, some holding signs or banners explicitly thanking antifa activists for their willingness to confront the far right. The weekend after the Boston rally, far-right activists who attempted to gather in Oakland were confronted by thousands of counterprotesters. When a militant antifascist black bloc arrived at the rally, it was met with cheers and applause. This level of support was short-lived as liberal politicians and pundits began to argue that militant antifascists’ use of violence was immoral and that antifa should be labeled as a criminal gang or even terrorists, playing right into far-right narratives.

Between 2017 and 2020 Portland became the epicenter of antifascist struggle as groups of far-right activists – initially organized by nearby right-wing group Patriot Prayer, then the Proud Boys in subsequent years – descended upon the city. These far-right rallies were often just cover for right-wing violence as fascists sought out fights with antifa activists or attacked people whom they perceived to be their political enemies. Through strong local organizing efforts, antifascists in Portland organized large counterdemonstrations that incorporated militant confrontation and non-militant antifascist strategies. These confrontations eventually routed the Proud Boys and other fascists who haven’t attempted to rally in the city since 2022.

Since 2017, antifa activism has been consistently maligned by the right wing and credulous liberals. As mentioned earlier, there have been ongoing efforts to criminalize militant antifascism as either gang activity or terrorism. The greatest success of the far right in discrediting antifa activism has come from associating it with the black bloc tactic and general rioting. During the uprisings of 2020 that were inspired by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, right-wing and even some “liberal” media used antifa interchangeably with black bloc and even the Black Lives Matter movement. This was a concerted strategy to associate these disparate tactics and movements in the eyes of the public. Any form of property destruction that occurred during the uprisings was labeled as the actions of antifa when there was no evidence of formal or informal antifascist organizing at these demonstrations. This was intentionally designed to stoke fear of antifascists and antifascism in segments of the American population. That fear was also linked to racist fears of the Black Lives Matter movement, which was also discussed interchangeably with antifa. In the minds of many Americans, especially those who consume right-wing media, antifa is a destructive outside force that is to be feared.

Despite this concerted effort to discredit antifascism, antifa activists continued to confront fascists when they mobilized. As the far right shifted from attacking “liberal” cities like Portland to the more vulnerable community of transgender and genderqueer people, they found a vulnerable target in drag events; especially those that were more family friendly such as drag queen story hours at local libraries and daytime drag shows. Antifascists soon mobilized to provide protection to attendees at such events, often serving as formal or informal event security. Groups of armed antifascists who would open-carry firearms, which is legal under the U.S. constitution, would attend these events to monitor, and if necessary, confront far-right aggressors. The network of antifascist John Brown Gun Clubs became the focus of media interest as they provided protection for drag events around the country.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s second term as president, the antifascist movement in the United States has taken a far less confrontational stance than in his first term. With the far right having taken full control of the state and imposing an authoritarian deployment of federal law enforcement, antifascists have made a strategic choice to focus their energies on protecting vulnerable communities. Antifa activists are currently organizing to confront the program of mass deportations, to provide mutual aid to vulnerable transgender people who are having their access to medical care eliminated, and to people who need to seek out abortion care. The antifascist movement continues the day-to-day work of publicly shaming fascists; but with few far-right mobilizations, large-scale public confrontations seem to be a thing of the past, for now. Antifascists continue to confront the far right in ways that are meaningful, even if they aren’t very public.

Further Reading

Bowstern, Moe, Mic Crenshaw, Celina Flores, Julie Perini, and Erin Yanke, eds. 2023. It Did Happen Here: An Antifascist People’s History. Oakland, CA: PM Press and Working Class History.

Bray, Mark. 2017. Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing.

Burley, Shane. 2017. Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It. Chico, CA: AK Press.

Clay, Shannon, Michael Staudenmaier, Kristin Schwartz, and Lady. 2023. We Go Where They Go: The Story of Anti-Racist Action. Oakland, CA: PM Press.

Hope, Jeanelle K., and Bill Mullen. 2023. The Black Antifascist Tradition: Fighting Back from Anti-Lynching to Abolition. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.

Moore, Hilary, and James Tracy. 2020. No Fascist USA!: The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today’s Movements. Open Media Book. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books.

Vials, Chris. 2014. Haunted by Hitler: Liberals, the Left, and the Fight Against Fascism in the United States. University of Massachusetts Press.

Vysotsky, Stanislav. 2020. American Antifa: The Tactics, Culture, and Practice of Militant Antifascism. New York, NY: Routledge.