Revealed: neo-Confederate group includes military officers and politicians

By  Jason Wilson, The Guardian

Leaked data shows other high-profile members have overlapping membership in more explicitly racist or violent groups

Leaked membership data from the neo-Confederate Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) organization has revealed that the organization’s members include serving military officers, elected officials, public employees, and a national security expert whose CV boasts of “Department of Defense Secret Security Clearance”.

But alongside these members are others who participated in and committed acts of violence at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and others who hold overlapping membership in violent neo-Confederate groups such as the League of the South (LoS).

The group, organized as a federation of state chapters, has recently made news for increasingly aggressive campaigns against the removal of Confederate monuments. This has included legal action against states and cities, the flying of giant Confederate battle flags near public roadways, and Confederate flag flyovers at Nascar races.

…[T]he Georgia division of SCV commenced legal action against the city of Decatur with the aim of restoring a Confederate memorial obelisk which was removed in June 2020, and later replaced with a statue of the late congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis.

Last year, in a widely criticized move, the University of North Carolina’s board of governors proposed creating a $2.5m charitable trust which would pay the state’s SCV organization to maintain a Confederate “Silent Sam” statue which had been removed from the campus.

That deal fell apart in recent weeks. But critics – including former members – alleged that the SCV commander for the state, Kevin Stone, associated with extremists and other “scary” individuals who had been recruited to the group….

The Guardian identified members who were listed as active, and whose contact information included addresses associated with government agencies, the armed forces, educational institutions, and non-government organizations.

The data

The national membership data was provided to the Guardian by a self-described hacktivist whose identity has been withheld for their safety.

The data reveals the names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses of almost 59,000 past and present members of the organization, including 91 who used addresses associated with government agencies for their contact email, and 74 who used addresses associated with various branches of the armed forces….

The Guardian identified members who were listed as active, and whose contact information included addresses associated with government agencies, the armed forces, educational institutions, and non-government organizations.

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