American Front
Encyclopedia
American Front is a white supremacist
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...

 organization started in 1987 in San Francisco, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 by Bob Heick. It began as a loose organization modeled after the British National Front
British National Front
The National Front is a far right, white-only political party whose major political activities took place during the 1970s and 1980s. Its popularity peaked in the 1979 general election, when it received 191,719 votes ....

. Heick began working with Tom Metzger
Tom Metzger
Thomas Metzger is an American white nationalist who founded White Aryan Resistance . His far-right activist groups, including WAR, have been monitored by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an American organization that tracks hate groups...

's White Aryan Resistance
White Aryan Resistance
White Aryan Resistance is a neo-Nazi white separatist organization founded and led by former Ku Klux Klan leader Tom Metzger. Part of the American far right, it is based in Warsaw, Indiana and is incorporated as a business....

 (WAR) in 1988. Heick and artist Boyd Rice
Boyd Rice
Boyd Blake Rice is an American experimental sound/noise musician using the name of NON since the mid-1970s, archivist, actor, photographer, author, member of the Partridge Family Temple religious group, co-founder of the UNPOP art movement and current staff writer for Modern Drunkard...

 posed for photos in AF uniforms for an article on neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or some variant thereof.The term neo-Nazism can also refer to the ideology of these movements....

 in Sassy magazine. Rice claims he was never really a member of the American Front, but that he was friends with Heick.

History

In 1985, after years of associating with peers of all races, Bob Heick began writing and distributing leaflets, mostly from a nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

 anti-communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...

 stance, in response to the increasing leftist
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...

 influence in the local punk subculture
Punk subculture
The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.-History:...

. Originally intended as an umbrella organization for all American skinhead
Skinhead
A skinhead is a member of a subculture that originated among working class youths in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, and then spread to other parts of the world. Named for their close-cropped or shaven heads, the first skinheads were greatly influenced by West Indian rude boys and British mods,...

s, AF had no formal structure or membership. In San Francisco, Heick lost favor with the mostly apolitical skinheads. Media attention and constant vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...

 and assault
Assault
In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...

 (such as breaking the windows of the Bound Together Anarchist bookstore and harassing interracial couples in the Haight-Ashbury) by the group brought increased attention from the local police. In addition, Heick's progression from patriotism
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...

 to Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 lost him many friends, and some people accused him of trying to take over the local skinhead scene. Heick then started associating with heavy metal music
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 fans and rural white workers. He formed the short-lived group United White Brethren in the North and South Bay Areas.

Upon his return to San Francisco in 1987, Heick found the newer generation of local skinheads to be more receptive to Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

. The AF transformed into a political organization, and its membership was no longer exclusively skinheads. On the AF telephone hotline, at the end of the telephone message, the voice of Heick asked "Do you have hate in your heart?" The AF telephone hotline often repeated a quote from the San Francisco-born author Jack London
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...

: "I'm a worker, but first of all I'm a white worker". On May 1, 1988, AF held its first White Workers Day march on Haight Street
Haight Street
Haight Street, in San Francisco, is perhaps best known as the principal street in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, also known as Upper Haight. It stretches from Market Street to Stanyan Street, at Golden Gate Park. It is named after California pioneer and exchange banker Henry Haight ....

 in San Francisco, in which 65 participants, which included a few long haired white hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...

s who had spontaneously joined the march, marched unopposed. This was heralded by Tom Metzger
Tom Metzger
Thomas Metzger is an American white nationalist who founded White Aryan Resistance . His far-right activist groups, including WAR, have been monitored by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an American organization that tracks hate groups...

 of White Aryan Resistance
White Aryan Resistance
White Aryan Resistance is a neo-Nazi white separatist organization founded and led by former Ku Klux Klan leader Tom Metzger. Part of the American far right, it is based in Warsaw, Indiana and is incorporated as a business....

 on his telephone hotline, in the WAR newspaper, and on TV. The AF tabloid Aryan Warrior was published soon after. Metzger began presenting Heick to the media as a spokesman for white power skinheads. Heick appeared on the TV news magazine The Reporters
The Reporters
The Reporters was a newsmagazine show aired by FOX Television in the 1988-89 and 1989-90 seasons.The Reporters was much in the style of the syndicated show A Current Affair, except that there was no regular "host" role...

, in a segment that mainly focused on Heick and included footage of the Mayday march. AF was also featured in publications such as Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

, Hustler
Hustler
Hustler is a monthly pornographic magazine aimed at men and published in the United States. It was first published in 1974 by Larry Flynt. It was a step forward from the Hustler Newsletter which was cheap advertising for his strip club businesses at the time. The magazine grew from a shaky start to...

, and Sassy. By 1989, there were AF units in 14 American states.

Aryan Woodstock

Heick started to organize a concert of white power bands on rural land near Napa, California
Napa, California
-History:The name Napa was probably derived from the name given to a southern Nappan village whose people shared the area with elk, deer, grizzlies and cougars for many centuries, according to Napa historian Kami Santiago. At the time of the first recorded exploration into Napa Valley in 1823, the...

, a suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...

 of San Francisco in the northern part of the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

. Heick was pushed aside by Tom Metzger, and the concert became a White Aryan Resistance event instead of an AF event. Heick and Metzger disagreed on almost every facet of the festival, including the name, Aryan Woodstock. Heick disagreed with Metzger's promotion of the event on his phone hotline, because the it was monitored by anti-racist activists, and would give them time to organize against the event. A WAR activist was told by three bureaucrats that no permit would be required to play live music at a private event on private land, as long as sanitation was provided for.

During the two weeks leading up to Aryan Woodstock, the event was a leading local news story. Napa County sought an injunction to block the gathering, and Heick appeared before a judge to defend AF and WAR's right to assemble. The judge ruled that the gathering may take place, but that there could be no music. Approximately 300 people from across the United States arrived on the property before the landowner caved to police pressure and allowed the authorities to close off the entrance. This stranded many would-be attendees, some who had traveled great distances to be there. Several hundred protesters were outside the property. Tension between AF and WAR increased soon after. Heick spent the next year visiting various AF units in California and across the United States before getting married and settling down in Portland, Oregon.

1990s and later

In 1990, Heick announced on the AF telephone hotline that the group would appear in San Francisco's Union Square
Union Square, San Francisco, California
Union Square is a plaza of bordered by Geary, Powell, Post and Stockton Streets in San Francisco, California. "Union Square" also refers to the central shopping, hotel, and theater district that surrounds the plaza for several blocks. The area got its name because it was once used for rallies and...

 on the first Saturday in May. The message ran for a month prior to the event. Opponents of the AF held a Mayday demonstration three days prior, on May 1. On the day of the AF event, Heick arrived with 10 men and three women, and marched into 300 missile-throwing protesters. Police descended upon the AF contingent and confiscated their wooden shields. Police were hit from both sides and made no attempt to separate the two groups. There were a few injuries.

In October 1990, The Coalition for Human Dignity published fliers featuring Heick's new home address in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, and distributed press releases announcing his arrival. Local TV news crews arrived at Heick's apartment a few days after he moved in. Heick still received regular invitations to appear on national television, but many of the new offers were to appear on trash TV shows. Heick refused those offers, restricting his interviews to genuine news programs. As press interest in Heick and AF waned, Heick focused on local activism. AF's 1991 May Day demonstration was held in Portland. There was a large counter protest, but no violence. In 1992, Heick and AF associates were the first out-of-state activists to arrive at the Randy Weaver
Randy Weaver
Randall Claude "Randy" Weaver is a former Green Beret who was at the center of a deadly confrontation with U.S. federal agents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992.-Early life:...

 stand-off at Ruby Ridge
Ruby Ridge
Ruby Ridge was the site of a violent confrontation and siege in northern Idaho in 1992. It involved Randy Weaver, his family, Weaver's friend Kevin Harris, and agents of the United States Marshals Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation...

. Heick blockaded a fuel truck and lambasted the driver for supporting the government.

Around this time, AF focused on demonstrations and literature distribution. The group's telephone hotline was revived in Portland and remained active until Heick left the group in 1995. In the 1990s, the Washington and California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 AF sections published The Voice of Revolution magazine, which had strong ties to Combat 18
Combat 18
Combat 18 is a violent neo-Nazi organisation associated with Blood and Honour. It originated in the United Kingdom, but has since spread to other countries. Members of Combat 18 have been suspected in numerous deaths of immigrants, non-whites, and other C18 members...

 in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. In New York, Jim Porazzo published Greystorm. In Portland, Heick published Revolutionary Nationalist AF focused on opposing hate crime
Hate crime
In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...

 laws, which they claimed only targeted whites. AF became known for harassing Portland city commissioner Mike Lindberg, who called the group "gay bashing skinheads" in the press. The Albany, Oregon
Albany, Oregon
Albany is the eleventh largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon, and is the county seat of Linn County. It is located in the Willamette Valley at the confluence of the Calapooia River and the Willamette River in both Linn and Benton counties, just east of Corvallis and south of Salem. It is...

 area AF unit held regular demonstrations. AF briefly resurfaced under the leadership of Porazzo, who moved the group to Harrison, Arkansas
Harrison, Arkansas
Harrison is a city in Boone County, Arkansas, United States. It is the county seat. According to 2007 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city was 13,108. Boone County was organized in 1869, during reconstruction after the civil war. Harrison was platted and made the county seat. It is...

 and began to promote Third Position
Third Position
Third Position is a revolutionary nationalist political ideology that emphasizes its opposition to both communism and capitalism. Advocates of Third Position politics typically present themselves as "beyond left and right", instead claiming to syncretize radical ideas from both ends of the...

ism.

In the early 2000s, AF was no longer active, except for a few activists who functioned only on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

. All of the group's websites and contact addresses have since disappeared. David Lynch became the new leader in 2002. On March 2, 2011, Lynch was shot dead and his pregnant girlfriend was shot in the leg in Citrus Heights
Citrus Heights, California
Citrus Heights is a city in Sacramento County, California, USA. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 83,301, down from 85,071 at the 2000 census....

, California.

External Links

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