On July 8, leaders of the white nationalist League of the South ventured to Travelers Rest, South Carolina, to hold a conference at Dixie Fest, the now annual event of the neo-Confederate Dixie Republic store.
Held on the same date and same Dixie Republic location as a “Dixie Fest” broadcast by Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) CEO Sam Bushman’s Liberty Roundtable radio show, the League of the South event was initially billed as its “2023 Summer Conference.” A YouTube video circulated by the Florida chapter of the group described it as the “League of the South’s Dixie Fest Conference.”[1]
Jim O’Brien, who spoke at the League of the South event under the name Padraig Martin of Identity Dixie, wrote in the aftermath that about 50 people attended the white nationalist conference, including “swells up to roughly one hundred by curious onlookers.”[2] Hill claimed some had come from Wyoming and one 800 miles from Missouri.[3]
O’Brien, as Padraig Martin, wrote that attendance “was disappointing given the fact that nearly 1500 people came through Dixie Fest throughout the day – especially the evening,” adding,
“What was encouraging were two things. First, the number of folks who asked questions about the rapid collapse of these United States. To a person no one believes the United States will survive the next ten years. Second, the number of energized young activists.”[4]
O’Brien claimed that 10-15 younger people attended the conference. “The event,” he wrote, “concluded with a live recording of James Edwards’ The Political Cesspool.”[5]
Michael Hill on the League of the South Direction
In his speech, League of the South President Michael Hill explained that the Dixie Fest gathering comes as the League plans more single-day events to attract people.[6]
Much of Michael Hill’s Dixie Fest speech centered on his “thoughts” on southern nationalist manhood and femininity – e.g., men are called upon to lead and “women are not going to be leaders.” Hill elaborated, “I don’t even believe women should vote. I don’t believe women should hold public office.” Continuing his bigoted display, Hill lashed out, declaring the “perversion of transgenderism” to be an
“assault on God’s created order by the children of the devil…and the sooner we realize that’s what’s going on, the sooner we can combat it and put an end to it. And it must be ended. We cannot allow this to go on because it’s going to destroy masculinity and femininity and with that Civilization.”
Hill also asserted that “real men” must be prepared for violence. In addition to stating that a man “ought to be able to cut somebody’s throat when necessary,” Hill expounded,
“Men have to do things, sometimes, in the line of duty that they would rather not do, but that is part of doing your duty is being willing to do those unpleasant things when you’re called upon to do it…I can’t tell you for several reasons exactly what those things might be and when they might be necessary to do, because I think the DOJ will be listening. I’m not going to make it any easier for them. But you probably kind of get a hint of what I’m talking about…I mean obviously if duty calls and we’re invaded, like we’re being invaded right now, you have to put that aside. Men who are married with children have had to go off to war and die for thousands of years, and that’s not going to change.” [Italics added]
Touting Robert E. Lee and Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest as positive examples of Southern manhood, Hill continued,
“It also just rips the heart out of me knowing that there’s southern blood there that is not being, and it’s not realizing its potential, you know. If we’re going to win this thing, we’re going to have to be men. The Bible calls upon us to play the men, and it doesn’t mean play at being a man. That means to go and be the man, and we have a number of great examples, uh, there, uh, the example of Joshua, for example, the example of David. And I know some of you are probably saying, ‘Why are you giving me these Jews as examples?’ Mike Tubbs knows why I’m saying this; these are our people, and I’ll be glad to explain to you at some later time why these are our people, and they’re not descendants of these ugly creatures that we call Jews today.”
Michael Hill’s references to Joshua and David in the Bible as not being descendants of Jews and claiming them as “our people” sounds remarkably like the Christian Identity “theology” promoted in an ad run on CSPOA leader Sam Bushman’s Dixie Fest broadcast for the Confederate Church of Christ.
And it does so for a reason.
Michael Tubbs and Christian Identity
Michael Tubbs, the Chief of Staff of the League of the South and head of its Florida chapter, described his own path to Christian Identity in a December 2022 interview with William Finck of the Panama City, Florida-based Christian Identity outfit, Christogenea. In the interview, Tubbs describes how he got involved in Christian Identity after finding a copy of the British Israel book, The United States and Britain in Prophecy while serving in the military at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina in the 1980s.[7]
British Israelism is a precursor to Christian Identity, sharing its racial identification of Northern Europeans with the Israelites of the Bible. Christian Identity holds that whites are Biblical Israel, Jews are satanic imposters, and people of color a pre-Adamic and inferior race.
Tubbs recounted that he found a card in the British Israel book advertising a “Bible study” from the Christian Committee to Teach Bible Law from Lakemore, Ohio. He obtained material from the group showing that “Bible law” was “important because of who they were, and it eventually got on to the Christian Identity message.” The “study” introduced him to Christian Identity leaders such as Pete Peters and Jack Mohr, describing that “it was no time at all before I was immersed in Christian Identity.” Tubbs added, “There is an unusually large number of Christian Identity adherents within the League of the South.”[8]
Christogenea’s William Finck, who said to Michael Tubbs that he has “probably seen you a hundred times,” holds that,
“Christian Identity, also sometimes called Israel Identity, is the only true conservative Christianity. It is true because it seeks to maintain the understanding – in accordance with Scripture – that the New Covenant was made only with those same people with whom the Old Covenant was made: the House (family) of Israel and the House (family) of Judah. These Israelite people are traceable through time to the Keltic and Germanic tribes of today. None of these people are Jews.[9]
Finck writes elsewhere that Jews “have themselves been the antichrists all along!” [10]
The viciousness of Finck’s ideology is expressed on his website, which includes “the Mein Kampf project at Christogenea.org” – Mein Kampf being the title of Adolph Hitler’s infamous book written while jailed for attempting the 1923 “beer hall putsch.”
Goals of Christogenea’s project include,
“demonstrating that Adolf Hitler was a good Christian man who cared deeply about his race, and followed the examples of Christ rather than just the lip-service found in modern churches… Lastly, we will publish whatever other worthy papers we can possibly obtain in order to set the record straight in reference to certain historical events, and others which are supposedly historical…It is not the holocaust (sic) deniers who are a danger to truth and freedom in this world. It is the Christ deniers who are a danger to truth and freedom!”[11]
Finck resigned from the League of the South earlier this year.
The League of the South’s deep roots in Christian Identity established, Hill also hinted at the League of the South bringing back weapons and fight training to their events:
“I would like to do this again in the future. We used to have weekends where we…brought in guys who were really expert to teach us open-hand and knife and, and pistol – close, close, street fighting, in other words, with your hands with knives and with pistols at close range. We went through this stuff class after class after class. So many of our people got wonderful training like that.”
League of the South Chief of Staff and Florida leader Michael Tubbs has his own history of preparing for violence. In 1987, Tubbs and other members of a group called the Knights of the New Order stole M-16 rifles from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, eventually amassing a stockpile of weapons and some 90 pounds of explosives. The group planned to initiate a race war, intending to “target journalists, TV stations and black- and Jewish-owned business,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In 1990, Tubbs pleaded guilty to stealing rifles belonging to the U.S. and served four years of an eight-year sentence. In 2017, Tubbs was announced as commander of the League of the South’s paramilitary branch, the Southern Defense Force.[12]
Sam Dickson and the Whites-Only Ethnostate
Kicking off his League of the South Dixie Fest speech by praising Michael Hill, Atlanta-based attorney and long-time white nationalist movement figure Sam Dickson mentioned a lawsuit brought by “Roberta Kaplan, the evil, evil Jewish lesbian who set out to shut everybody up.”[13] Dickson attacked civil rights laws such as the Fair Housing Act, claiming that “Race is fundamental, it is not environmental…I can’t imagine somebody who can believe that race is a social construct, race doesn’t exist, or that race, racial differences, there are no racial differences in intelligence.”
Dickson continued with his “thoughts” on secession:
“Mere geographic secession is not going to work. We’re going to have to have a change in the fundamental population, and we need a divorce. This country has been, been cursed from the day we first brought two incompatible races into the same country. The first slave ship that came [bold unclear] should have been torpedoed or sent better yet sent back with the cargo…We need to take over. I still believe this: We need to take over Cuba, bring the whites out and, build a country for black people and, put them there, and shake hands and say this has been a bad experience. It’s time for a divorce. That, that’s really what we need to do.”
This is the whites-only ethnostate desired by many white nationalists.
League of the South Executive Officer Mark Thomey seemed to be on hand to show how long, in one speech, a person could sustain “divorce as a metaphor for secession.” Thomey’s litany of issues necessitating secession, the usual suspects – gun rights, affirmative action, abortion, “sodomy,” transgenderism, immigration, gun rights, affirmative action, energy policy – and of course, “civil rights.”[14]
Jim O’Brien (aka Padraig Martin) and the Great Replacement
Meanwhile, Jim O’Brien (aka Padraig Martin) of Identity Dixie used his time on stage to gin up fear of black-on-white violence, allege “white genocide,” and demonstrate the outlandish heights of this movement’s immigration-related conspiracy theories. Of the latter, O’Brien asserted that the “border is open” so that children can be sex-trafficked, raped, and filmed, and the videos sold to “our adversaries, consisting of the antifa, the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, the federal government, the various news sources, and media.”[15]
“We are being replaced,” he continued, and “right now, you are occupied by an American government.” The solution, of course, secession – O’Brien’s particular bent being to stress the need to build an alternative economy and institutions to replace the existing ones –something he had elaborated on in his interview on Bushman’s Dixie Fest broadcast.
Despite the low turnout to the League of the South event, given that the Dixie Republic has institutionalized Dixie Fest as an annual event, there is every reason to believe Michael Hill and his band of Christian Identity adherents will continue using the venue to build its movement.
NOTES
[1] We Dare To Resist Florida League of the South. https://www.youtube.com/@wedaretoresist. Accessed August 2, 2023.
[2] Martin, Padraig. Last Week at Dixie Fest. July 15, 2023. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dixieonthes/last-week-dixie-fest.
[3] We Dare To Resist Florida League of the South. Dr. Michael Hill at the League of the South conference. Posted July 27, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0trAgnNQxwM
[4] Martin, Padraig. Last Week at Dixie Fest. July 15, 2023. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dixieonthes/last-week-dixie-fest.
[5] Martin, Padraig. Last Week at Dixie Fest. July 15, 2023. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dixieonthes/last-week-dixie-fest.
[6] We Dare To Resist Florida League of the South. Dr. Michael Hill at the League of the South conference. Posted July 27, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0trAgnNQxwM
[7] Christogegenea. A Conversation with Michael Tubbs of the League of the South. Submitted by William Finck on Fri, 12/09/2022. https://christogenea.org/podcasts/conversation-michael-tubbs-league-south; Christogenia. Contact. https://christogenea.org/home/contact. Accessed August 15, 2023.
[8] Christogegenea. A Conversation with Michael Tubbs of the League of the South. Submitted by William Finck on Fri, 12/09/2022. https://christogenea.org/podcasts/conversation-michael-tubbs-league-south; Christogenia. Contact. https://christogenea.org/home/contact. Accessed August 15, 2023.
[9] Finck, William. What is Christian Identity? December 2, 2010. https://christogenea.org/articles/what-christian-identity
[10] Finck, William. The Anti-Christ for Dummies. https://christogenea.org/overview/anti-christ-dummies. Accessed August 24, 2023. Finck writes, “So while Christians await ‘The Anti-Christ’ whom they believe to be some future beastly ruler often depicted with science-fiction quality abilities, the truth is that the antichrists have walked among us for thousands of years already! Many of them today are still called “Jews”, and adhere to that same false religion in which they rejected Christ! Their spirits are not from God, but are rather from their own father – the devil…Christians, if they truly believe their Bibles, must reject Jews, who have themselves been the antichrists all along!”
In an article titled, “A Concise Explanation of the Creation of the Jewish People,” William Finck would also write the dogma of one seed Identity: “The Old Testament accounts found in the Book of Genesis demonstrate that there was a rivalry between Jacob and Esau. Esau, it is also clear, was a race-mixer who had taken wives of the Canaanites and the Ishmaelites…The rivalry between the brothers later turned into a national enmity among their descendants, and the Edomites were eventually enslaved by the Israelites…and later revolted… When the Chaldaeans finally took Jerusalem and destroyed the city, we find that the Edomites were in league with them, and are blamed for the temple’s destruction…It can be shown from the New Testament that many of the original Israelites of Judaea converted to Christianity during the ensuing years, losing their identity as Judaeans. The Edomites never converted, clinging to their traditions found in the Talmud – which has absolutely no authentic connection to the ancient Hebrew religion. Today these people, and all of their many proselytes and those whom they have intermarried with, are known as Jews.” Finck, William. A Concise Explanation of the Creation of the Jewish People. https://christogenea.org/overview/concise-explanation-creation-jewish-people. Accessed August 24, 2023.
[11] Mein Kampf. A Christogena project. Welcome to the Mein Kampf project at Christogenea.org. https://mk.christogenea.org/node/4873. Accessed August 24, 2023. The“Mein Kampf Project,” proclaims,
“Here we shall endeavor to accomplish three goals. First, we shall present the entire James Murphy translation of Mein Kampf, remaining faithful to the page numbering and type styles of that volume even if aesthetics suffers a bit for it. Then we will also present papers, as an ongoing project, demonstrating that Adolf Hitler was a good Christian man who cared deeply about his race, and followed the examples of Christ rather than just the lip-service found in modern churches, for better or for worse. Lastly, we will publish whatever other worthy papers we can possibly obtain in order to set the record straight in reference to certain historical events, and others which are supposedly historical…It is not the holocaust deniers who are a danger to truth and freedom in this world. It is the Christ deniers who are a danger to truth and freedom!”
[12] See Southern Poverty Law Center. Michael Ralph Tubbs. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/michael-ralph-tubbs. Accessed August 25, 2023.
[13] We Dare To Resist Florida League of the South. Sam Dickson at the League of the South’s Dixie Fest Conference. Posted July 26, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2AJ_6lz8MM
[14] We Dare To Resist Florida League of the South. Rise Up Southern Man – Mark Thomey – League of the South – Dixie Fest – July 8, 2023. Posted July 25, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7gicggM7kI
[15] “We Dare To Resist. Florida League of the South.” “League of the South at Dixie Fest – Padraig Martin of Identity Dixie.” Posted July 25, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhXm-AYNU58. Martin said, “As I am speaking, there is a young boy that was dragged across the border, the open border down in Texas. The border that the United States government keeps open. And I wonder why it’s being kept open. That 7-year-old boy right now is being sexually penetrated, on camera, filmed, violated, tortured. Through his cries, he is being filmed; and those films are being sold to our adversaries who are buying them and spreading them around for their own sexual gratification. Those adversaries are members of the antifa, the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, the federal government, the various news sources and media. That is who they are, that is who’s buying those sexually perverse tapes. And that is who is spreading them and that is why that border is open, so they can continue to exploit young men, young women. They exploit our people.”
