Weird Little Guys

We lost one of the greats last month. Laura Sullivan was an antifascist researcher, a photographer, a journalist, a friend, a mother, and a mentor. She was a legend and we were lucky to have her while we did.

You can make a donation to One People's Project, the antifascist organization Laura was involved in for more than two decades, here:
https://onepeoplesproject.com/donate/

Daryle Lamont Jenkins' tribute to his longti...

Wrapping up the discussion of the MAGA narrative surrounding the SPLC indictment, Molly addresses the question of money. If the administration is implying the SPLC fully funded the 2017 Unite the Right rally, what would that mean? How much does something like that cost? And who actually paid for it?

Sources & Additional Reading:
https://www.integrityfirstforamerica.org/exhibits

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/...

The MAGA media is running with the President's theory that the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 wasn't real. That's offensive to anyone with a solid relationship with reality, but it's especially hurtful for the guys who worked very hard to plan that nazi rally.

Link to the September 29, 2025 episode of I Don't Speak German that was mentioned:  https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/136-the-final-cantwell 

The President of the United States went on 60 Minutes last month and claimed that the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 was fake, a hoax perpetrated by the Southern Poverty Law Center. He's referring to allegations made in the recent indictment against the SPLC that one of their paid informants was a member of the planning chat for the rally. But what does the indictment actually say? And what kind of person snitches...

Molly answers some of your burning questions about important stuff, like a nazi's tuna casserole recipe, who came up with a rhyming phrase about fascist violence, and what kind of cake she's eating this week.

Sources:

Testa, M. Militant Anti-Fascism: A Hundred Years of Resistance. AK Press, 2015.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/m-testa-militant-anti-fascism 

https://socialistworker.co.uk/wp-cont...

In the final part of the story about Jack Kershaw, we'll talk about his legal career. Before he represented MLK's assassin, before he sculpted a gigantic racist statue out of old bathtubs, he got a law degree from a part time night school program at the YMCA so he could do his part to stop integration.

Sources:

Phillips, Betsy. Dynamite Nashville: the FBI, the KKK, and the bombers beyond their control. Third Man Books...

Police in New Jersey arrested a woman found sleeping in her car in a strip mall parking lot after the plates came back registered to a stolen vehicle. Her lawyer, Tennessee segregationist Jack Kershaw, insisted that his client was not only innocent, but said she was telling the truth - she really was a Romanian princess.

Sources:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1509995/HRH-Prince-Carol-of-Romania.html

http...

After losing his job, an ex-Disney employee tried to get his former employer's attention by hacking in and making strange updates to company files.

Original Air Date: 6.5.25

Sources:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69534211/united-states-v-scheuer/
https://www.eeoc.gov/what-you-can-expect-after-you-file-charge
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/26/us/disney-worker-prison-hacking.html

See omnystudio.com/listener for...

Decades before he sculpted a Confederate general out of old bathtubs, Jack Kershaw briefly represented his most famous client - Martin Luther King Jr's assassin, James Earl Ray. The relationship soured after Ray discovered his lawyer had pocketed a payment from Playboy magazine.

Sources:

James McKinley, "Playboy Interview: James Earl Ray," Playboy Magazine, September 1977

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/08/09/arch...

Molly interviews Michael Edison Hayden about his new book, Strange People on the Hill: How Extremism Tore Apart a Small Town. The book is an intimate portrait of what happened in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia after a white nationalist group moved into the castle on the hill.
Preorder the book now or buy it anywhere books are sold when it comes out on April 7, 2026

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/michael-edison-hayden/...

Jack Kershaw created his most famous piece of art in his 80s. His lifelong passion for the arts had to take a backseat when he shifted his focus to becoming a professional racist during the fight against integration. He was doing it for his confederate ancestors, he would often say. But he was never very specific about who exactly his ancestors were...

The It Could Happen Here episode mentioned, originally aired 2/22/2024 - ...

At the end of this exploration of nazi serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin and the novel loosely based on his crimes, the question remains: did any of his friends in the white power movement know what he was going to do before he did it? What clues does the novel hold?

Sources:
Pierce, Kelvin. Sins of My Father, Growing Up with America's Most Dangerous White Supremacist. Independently Published, 2020

Griffin, R. S....

A closer look at the second novel by the man who wrote The Turner Diaries reveals that it isn't just about serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin... it's the author's fantasy about the man he wishes he could have been. 

Sources:

Pierce, Kelvin. Sins of My Father, Growing Up with America's Most Dangerous White Supremacist. Independently Published, 2020

Thomas Martinez, Brotherhood of Murder: The Shocking Inside Story of The Order. ...

As we approach the end of the series on nazi serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin, the rest of the timeline is filled in. Shortly after murdering two young men in Utah, Franklin was arrested at a motel in Kentucky after calling to complain that a police car had him double parked.

Sources:

Mel Ayton, Dark Soul of the South: The Life and Crimes of Racist Killer Joseph Paul Franklin, Potomac Press, Inc., 2011

Ralph ...

Just about every source of information about nazi serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin gets the name of one of his victims wrong. In my search for information about the man who was murdered in Falls Church, Virginia in August of 1979, I came up mostly empty. We've erased a man from the story of his own murder because it's easier to tell a story about a racist than it is to talk about racism.

Sources:

Mel Ayton, Dark So...

After Joseph Paul Franklin was arrested in 1980, prosecutors all over the country were waiting their turn to try him for murder. After a federal prosecutor failed to convince a jury that shooting a man just for being black was a civil rights violation, they lost their confidence. But Joseph Paul Franklin was desperate to get out of the federal prison where he was serving his first few life sentences.

Sources:

Mel Ayton, Dark...

When Joseph Paul Franklin hit the road to start his killing spree, his movements seemed completely random. But what if they weren't?

Sources:

Mel Ayton, Dark Soul of the South: The Life and Crimes of Racist Killer Joseph Paul Franklin, Potomac Press, Inc., 2011

Fine, Morris, and Milton Himmelfard. American Jewish Year Book 1979. 1978.

Frenkel, Margaret. American synagogue directory, 1963

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-250...