Louis Beam | |
|---|---|
.jpg) FBI ten most wanted poster as fugitive #414 | |
| Born | Louis Ray Beam, Jr. 20 August 1946[1] |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Political activist, Author, Journalist |
| Known for | The first important proponent of leaderless resistance within the white supremacist movement |
| Notable work | Inter-Klan Newsletter & Survival Alert, Essays of a Klansman, The Seditionist |
| Movement | Christian Identity, Neo-fascism |
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Louis Ray Beam, Jr. (born 1946) is an American white supremacist, conspiracy theorist and neo-fascist.
After high school, he joined the United States Army and served as a helicopter door-gunner in Vietnam.[2] He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.[3] Once he returned to the United States, he became a Klansman, leading a maritime[4] Louisiana KKK element and Klan rally in Texas against government help to Vietnamese immigrant fishermen.[5][6] He was also the leader of the Texas Emergency Reserve, a militia that was disbanded by the courts in 1982 as a result of a lawsuit filed under Texas anti-militia law by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).[7][8] The lawsuit was brought by SPLC after the militia harassed Vietnamese fishermen during the 1981 fishing season.
Beam was using Camp Puller near Houston in 1980 to train militia, including children as young as eight years old, in armed guerrilla tactics; the camp was shut down after publicity led to protests, and parents complaining that they were not aware of the children's activities at the camp.[9] The Boy Scouts Council of Houston rejected a charter request from the troop at Camp Puller.[10] Videotape shown during the shrimper hearing had Beam saying, "We're going to assume authority in this country."[11] He moved to Idaho afterwards and became active with Aryan Nations in the early 1980s.[12]
He was arrested November 6, 1987, at home with his wife in Guadalajara, Mexico. During the arrest, Beam's wife opened fire and critically injured a Mexican police officer. He was wanted as a fugitive #414 of the FBI ten most wanted list on charges of seditious conspiracy to violently overthrow the U.S. government.[13]
In 1988, he was later acquitted in a separate case of conspiring to overthrow the government.[7] He is considered to be the first important proponent of the strategy of leaderless resistance within the white supremacist movement.[14][15][16]
- ^ a b "Louis Ray Beam Jr.: Racist Leader Headed for Downfall?". Southern Poverty Law Center. 2002-06-18. Retrieved 2023-02-26.
- ^ Gardell, Mattias (2003). Gods of the blood: the pagan revival and white separatism. Duke University Press. p. 350. ISBN 978-0-8223-3071-4.
- ^ "Louis Beam". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 2022-08-08.
- ^ Dees M. & Corcoran J. Gathering Storm: America's Militia Threat (1997) photo with caption
- ^ Wade, Wyn Craig (1998). The fiery cross: the Ku Klux Klan in America. Oxford University Press US. p. 393. ISBN 978-0-19-512357-9.
- ^ Belew, Kathleen (2019). Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America (paperback ed.). London and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 46.
- ^ a b Gallaher, Carolyn (2003). On the fault line : race, class, and the American patriot movement. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0742519732. OCLC 50554807.
- ^ Belew, Bring the War Home, 37.
- ^ "PARAMILITARY CAMP IS CLOSED BY OWNER; Lethal Training for Klan Members Stirs a Strong Public Protest". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-08-14.
- ^ "Woman Asserts Scouts Planned to Hunt Aliens". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-08-14.
- ^ AP (1981-05-13). "Around the Nation; Videotapes of Klan Leader Shown at Shrimper Hearing". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-08-14.
- ^ Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2003). Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. NYU Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-8147-3155-0.
- ^ "Mexican police have arrested a white supremacist leader named... - UPI Archives". UPI. Retrieved 2024-11-15.
- ^ Laqueur, Walter (2000). The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction. Oxford University Press US. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-19-514064-4.
- ^ "US Domestic Terrorism: Ku Klux Klan". www.historycommons.org. Archived from the original on 2016-06-30. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
- ^ Belew, Bring the War Home, 109.