After 10 people were killed in a racist massacre in Buffalo on May 14, the police said the man accused in the shooting had posted writings online embracing white supremacist ideas and admiration for gunmen in other racist mass shootings.
Extremist groups and individuals have become more public in the years since a violent rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, white nationalists, neo-Nazis and others clashed with counterdemonstrators, bringing hate out into the open. Members of extremist groups have joined protests against pandemic lockdowns and fighting openly with racial justice protesters. Members of the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and other extremist groups were on the frontlines of the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and have been accused of planning it. Experts who monitor the radical right say extremist ideas have spread more openly in the year since the attack.
This is the fifth episode of a five-part series produced in collaboration with The WNET Group’s reporting initiative Exploring Hate, on the roots and rise of hate in America and across the globe. Leadership support for Exploring Hate is provided by the Sylvia A. and Simon B. Poyta Programming Endowment to Fight Antisemitism. To learn more about Exploring Hate and for a full list of funders, visit pbs.org/exploringhate.