Willis Carto, Rot in Hell!

October 30, 2015 10:21 AM

Willis Carto, whose White supremacist and anti-Semitic activism via the organization he founded sixty years ago, the Liberty Lobby, its newspaper the Spotlight and successor organizations and publications gave rise to far right politics and persons across the spectrum from neo-Nazis to paleoconservatives to today’s libertarians, died Monday of cardiac arrest at the age of 89.

Carto was one of the most active and influential white nationalists of the past century and leaves behind a legacy of vile racial hatred, especially towards Jews. He heavily influenced a number of racists who were active in the latter part of the twentieth century, such as Klansman turned-politician David Duke and William Pierce, founder of the National Alliance, at one-time the most dangerous and best organized neo-Nazi organization in America. – Southern Poverty Law Center

Carto founded the notorious Holocaust denial outfit Institute for Historical Review (link goes to SPLC site). He was one of the main white nationalists profiled in Leonard Zeskind's study Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream.

posted by graymouser (2 comments total)

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posted by Bringer Tom at 10:29 AM on October 30, 2015

A legal history footnote: A libel case brought by Liberty Lobby against a newspaper columnist led to one of the most widely cited US Supreme Court cases, Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, which articulated the standard for summary judgment.
posted by jedicus at 10:29 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]