[Letter about a neo-Nazi group]

New York: Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights, 1947.

Two mimeographed leaves, measuring 11 x 8 1/2 inches (278 x 215 mm), bound with paper clip, and signed in ink by James Sheldon at end.

Letter concerning trial and conviction of leaders of a white-supremacist, neo-Nazi group in Atlanta, the Columbians. Professor James H. Sheldon, administrative chairman of the Anti-Nazi League, has signed the letter in ink and says he is going to Atlanta to assist in the trial of Ira Jett, a leader of the Columbians. This group wanted to rid the country of Blacks and Jews and favored violence to achieve those goals.

In his letter, Sheldon says Homer Loomis Jr. and Emory Burke, two other leaders, "have already been sentenced to the chain gang...." Georgia authorities had arrested Loomis and Burke on charges that included incitement to riot and possessing explosives. During their trial, Loomis's father, Homer Loomis Sr., a New York attorney, told the court: "Every Jew from New York to Jerusalem today is praying that you twelve good men and true, will stamp the brand of criminal upon this young man's noble Anglo-Saxon brow."

The Anti-Nazi League had great success in going after the Columbians. But, Sheldon says, the League "has only barely touched the surface of this cancerous growth of un-American propaganda and religious and racial bigotry, which has fastened itself upon the American people since the end of the war." He says a new pro-Nazi underground movement has sprung up, especially among certain Americans of German descent. He ends the letter by appealing for donations to keep battling the Columbians and other right-wing hate groups.

The letter is written on rectos of two pages, while the verso of the first page features a collage of newspaper clippings about the Anti-Nazi League and testaments to the group's importance in fighting hate groups. The League had battled Nazi propaganda and called for boycotts of Nazi Germany before World War II. After the war the League began investigating white-supremacist and other hate groups in the United States. It terminated operations in 1975 following Sheldon's death.

OCLC shows no institutional holdings of this letter. An interesting look at the fight against a neo-Nazi group in Atlanta. RARE.

Further reading: Steven E. Atkins, "Encyclopedia of Right-Wing Extremism in Modern American History." (ABC-Clio, 2011).

CONDITION: Toning to leaves, creasing and handling wear, rusting from old paper clip (replaced). About Good.