Thomas Linton Metzger, 82 is dead. He is the neo-Nazi former Ku Klux Klansman who later formed the White Aryan Resistance. Metzger’s involvement in the organized white power movement goes back nearly 50 years, when he joined David Duke’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and later became its California state leader. He died Nov. 4 in Hemet, California, per obituaries that appeared on Nov. 10 in The San Diego Union-Tribune and the Times of San Diego.
After splitting with David Duke in 1980, Metzger formed the White Aryan Resistance (WAR). It became one of the most influential white power movement in the U.S. Metzger openly advocated for racist violence and, he was among the first leaders in the U.S. hate movement to recruit young skinheads using hate music. He organized the first hate music concert held in the United States in 1988 in Oklahoma.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) successfully sued Metzger and his organization, (WAR), in connection with the 1988 murder of Ethiopian college student Mulugeta Seraw. Mulugeta, who had a young son, was killed by three racist skinheads. A jury agreed that Metzger had recruited the skinheads who committed the crime. Metzger had sent a WAR recruiter to Portland, Oregon, in 1988 to organize the racist skinhead presence there – an effort that culminated in the murder of Mulugeta Seraw.
Elden Rosenthal, a civil rights lawyer from Portland, Oregon explained his reasons for joining SPLC cofounder Morris Dees in suing Metzger (and later as a director on SPLC’s Board of Directors). “My father was a refugee from Germany just before World War II,” Rosenthal told Hatewatch in a phone interview. “This was the whole reason I’d become a lawyer, this was it.”
During the trial, Metzger, who had legal counsel, nonetheless spoke on his own behalf in front of the jury – sparing no detail about the depth of his racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic beliefs. “He wanted the stage. He wanted a chance to get up in front of the public,” Rosenthal said. “There was no shame about him.”
The jury awarded Mulugeta’s family $12.5 million, forcing Metzger to pay it in installments for over two decades after the verdict. It crippled his ability to organize, even though he continued to produce racist propaganda for the rest of his life.
The FBI searched Metzger’s home in 2009 after two brothers were accused of conducting a mail bomb attack that resulted in injuries to the Scottsdale, Arizona, Office of Diversity and Dialogue director. Two other people were also injured in the explosion.
Metzger never recanted his racist views and stayed active in the hate movement – hosting a podcast, maintaining his WAR website, and appearing at right-wing and racist events.
Thomas Metzger is DEAD! And the world is better for it.
