Thomas Robb

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Thom Robb
Born Thomas Robb
1946
Detroit, Michigan
Residence Boone County, Arkansas
Title National director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Pastor of the Christian Revival Center.
Website
www.christianidentitychurch.net and www.kkk.com

Thomas Robb, also known as Thom Robb,[1] is the national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,[2] and a pastor at the Christian Revival Center.

[edit] Early life

Thomas Robb was born in Detroit, Michigan into a Baptist family and grew up in Tucson, Arizona.[3]

Robb's parents shared some political views with Joseph McCarthy, Gerald L.K. Smith, Kenneth Goff, and Conde McGinley. Robb claims to have become awakened to the "Myth of the Holocaust" at the age of 13 while reading Conde McGinley's anti-Communist and antisemitic paper Common Sense. While still in high school he was an outspoken supporter of segregationist ideals and an active member of the John Birch Society.

[edit] Activities

In 1986, Robb organized a protest against the Martin Luther King National Holiday in Pulaski, Tennessee, which is the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. The event eventually became known as the White Christian Heritage Festival, held each October in Pulaski.[4] Over the years Robb has developed a close relationship with other extremists including, J. B. Stoner, Ed Fields, Don Black, David Duke, Willis Carto, Billy Roper, Michael Collins Piper, Canadian extremist Paul Fromm and former Croatian diplomat Tomislav Sunic.

Robb, a prolific writer, defends the Klan as a harmless organization, "gentle, upbeat, and friendly".[5] When featured in the PBS documentary Banished, Robb compared a Klan hood to a businessman's tie, claiming that "it's just tradition."[6] Robb is a pastor who believes in creationism, "or as some call intelligent design," and rejects evolution as "an attack upon our faith."[7] He is the pastor of a church, Christian Revival Center,[8] and broadcasts on shortwave radio and Stormfront internet radio.

In July 2009, his group lost a lawsuit and was ordered to pay $25,000 in punitive damages to the Rhino Times, a North Carolina newspaper, which it was illegally using to spread its propaganda.[9] The case was filed in 2006 when the paper charged that the Klan inserted its fliers into editions of Rhino Times.[9] The Klan counter-sued for defamation, but the case was dismissed.[9] Recent attention has focused on his family, such as his daughter Rachel Pendergraft and his granddaughters, Charity and Shelby Pendergraft, who have recently formed a "white nationalist" band called Heritage Connection.[10]

[edit] References

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