From the Margins to the Mainstream: Understanding & Resisting the White Nationalist Movement in America Today

Leonard Zeskind spent four decades researching – often in-person – the organizing by the white nationalist movement, from think tanks and publications to armed militia groups and Holocaust deniers. Published in 2009, his seminal work, Blood and Politics: History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream, was dismissed by some as paying attention to a problem of the past. Today, the book is considered an essential study of American racism — thorough, careful, and troublingly prescient.

Drawing on his experience not just as a MacArthur Genius Grant-winning scholar but also his decades of on-the-ground organizing, Zeskind showed how Americans have both fought and succumbed to far-right messaging. Originally published in 2009, the book is being re-released in paperback this October, following Zeskind’s death in May 2025.

This re-release could not be more timely: In 2025, the U.S. Naval Academy purged Blood and Politics as part of its banning of books about racism and diversity. In Leonard’s obituary, The New York Times’s headline noted that he “foresaw the rise of white nationalism.” It continues to be a relevant compass to understanding the strategies that drive white nationalism forward.

Washington Hebrew Congregation is honored to welcome several major researchers and collaborators who worked with Leonard across his career. The participants will include Carol Smith, Leonard’s wife and partner of 45 years, Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, and Kenneth Stern, the American Jewish Committee’s former director on hate and extremism. Other panelists may be added.

There will be a bagel brunch at 9:30 am before the event.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS
Carol Smith, Leonard’s life partner of 46 years, will share her personal reflections across the over 40 years of his life’s work to defeat organized white nationalists. Director of a Farm Crisis Project for the Jewish Community Relations Bureau in Kansas City, she worked closely with Leonard in the 1980s to stem the influence of the Posse Comitatus and other far-right efforts to recruit farmers during the 1980s Agricultural Crisis.

Devin Burghart is the executive director of IREHR, founded by Zeskind in 1983 to document and expose the white nationalist movement. Burghart is internationally recognized for his research and writing on white nationalism’s threat to democracy and human rights. Major publications include Soundtracks to the White Revolution, Tea Party Nationalism, and Ammon’s Army: Inside the far-Right People’s Rights Network, Facebook and COVID Denial. Burghart, working closely with Zeskind since 1991, is currently tracking the white nationalists’ plans for a post-Trump era.

Kenneth Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate. Formerly the director of the division on antisemitism and extremism at the American Jewish Committee, Stern is an award-winning author and attorney. Most recently, Stern is the editor of Simply Human: A Guide to Understanding and Combating Hate, an easy-to-read book in which an international team of hate studies experts join forces, guiding us to a better understanding of human hatred, what works to confront it, what doesn’t, and why.

Accommodations: ADA Accessible Venue

Organization: 2239

Livestream or Virtual: No, it’s not