Synopses & Reviews
The story of how a national grassroots network fought a resurgence of the KKK and other fascist groups during the Reagan years, laying the groundwork for today’s anti-fascist/anti-racist movements.
"Smash fascism! Read this book!" Tom Morello, songwriter and guitarist with Rage Against the Machine
"Studying the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee will give readers an understanding of the complexity of deconstructing the weapon of white supremacy from the inside out. Thank you Hilary and James for the precision of this analysis, and the true north of this star." adrienne maree brown, author of Pleasure Activism and Emergent Strategy
In June 1977, a group of white anti-racist activists received an alarming letter from an inmate at a New York state prison calling for help to fight the Ku Klux Klan's efforts to recruit prison staff and influence the people incarcerated. Their response was to form the first chapter of what would eventually become a powerful, nationwide grassroots network, the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, dedicated to countering the rise of the KKK and other far-right white nationalist groups.
No Fascist USA! tells the story of that network, whose efforts throughout the 1980s — which included exposing white supremacists in public office, confronting neo-Nazis in street protests, supporting movements for self-determination, and engagement with the underground punk scene — laid the groundwork for many anti-racist efforts to emerge since. Featuring original research, interviews with former members, and a trove of graphic materials, their story offers battle-tested lessons for those on the frontlines of social justice work today.
Review
"Written without sparing the fissures and blind misunderstandings, No Fascist USA! is a must-read for people who know little about this fugitive period and also for those who lived it." CounterPunch
Review
"No Fascist USA! brings us the unromanticized, and largely untold story of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee....This book is a necessary and long overdue contribution to inform the way forward." Carla F. Wallace, co-founder, Showing Up for Racial Justice
Review
"James Tracy and Hilary Moore deliver a searing, bold new work that examines another painful and complicated chapter in American race relations." Laurens Grant, filmmaker, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution and Freedom Riders
Review
"While I wish we did not need this book as badly as we do, I am grateful that Hilary Moore and James Tracy have gifted us this urgent read." Dan Berger, author of Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era
About the Author
Hilary Moore is an anti-racist political education trainer and teaches with generative somatics. She works on the Leadership Team of Showing Up for Racial Justice, and is the co-author of Organizing Cools the Planet: Tools and Reflections to Navigate the Climate Crisis (PM Press, 2011).
James Tracy is an author, organizer, and an Instructor of Labor and Community Studies at City College of San Francisco. He is the co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times and the author of Dispatches Against Displacement: Field Notes From San Francisco's Housing Wars.
Author and historian Robin D. G. Kelley is one of the most distinguished experts on African American studies and a celebrated professor who has lectured at some of America's highest learning institutions. He is currently Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He is author of Thelonious Monk: His Story, His Song, His Times and is best known for his books on African American culture: Race Rebels: Culture Politics and the Black Working Class, Yo' Mama's DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America and Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. His career spans several esteemed universities, including serving as a Professor of History and Africana at New York University as well as acting as Chairman of NYU's History Department. While at NYU, Kelley was one of the youngest full professors in the country at 32 years of age. He was also the William B. Ransford Professor of Cultural and Historical Studies at Columbia and helped to shape programs at its Institute for Research in African American Studies. Kelley's work includes seven books as well as over 100 magazine articles, which have been featured in such publications as the New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Code Magazine, Utne Reader, and African Studies Review.