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Louis Beam

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Louis Ray Beam, Jr. (born 1946) is an American white nationalist. After high-school, he served as a helicopter door-gunner in Vietnam.[1] He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.[2] Back in the U.S. he became a Klansman, leading a maritime[3] Louisiana KKK element against government help to Vietnamese immigrant fishermen.[4] He became active with Aryan Nations in the early 1980s.[5] He is considered to be the first important proponent of the strategy of leaderless resistance.[6] In recent years, Beam has maintained a significantly lower profile.

According to ADL/LEARN, he has been fighting against a government he views as "tyrannical and controlled by Jewish conspirators" for more than thirty years. He first became engaged on the far right as a paramilitary Klansman, later with ties to Christian Identity groups. He cites Thomas Jefferson in resistance to tyranny. Beam refused Aryan Nation's head Richard Girnt Butler's offer of leadership of the religious group in 1988 and chose to continue to work alone. During the past twenty years, he has had limited influence except for rare postings on the internet. His essay Leaderless Resistance has been translated into seven languages.

References

  1. ^ Gardell, Mattias (2003). Gods of the blood: the pagan revival and white separatism. Duke University Press. p. 350. ISBN 978-0-8223-3071-4.
  2. ^ Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report Summer 2002 http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=86
  3. ^ Dees M. & Corcoran J. Gathering Storm: America's Militia Threat (1997) photo with caption
  4. ^ Wade, Wyn Craig (1998). The fiery cross: the Ku Klux Klan in America. Oxford University Press US. p. 393. ISBN 978-0-19-512357-9.
  5. ^ Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2003). Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. NYU Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-8147-3155-0.
  6. ^ Laqueur, Walter (2000). The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction. Oxford University Press US. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-19-514064-4.