list of organizations designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups

Historical trends

In 1999, the SPLC listed 457 hate groups; that number steadily increased until 2011, when 1,018 groups were listed. The rise from 2008 onward was attributed in part to anger at Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States. Thereafter, the number of hate groups steadily dropped, reaching a low of 784 in 2014 (a 23% drop). However, between 2014 and 2018, the number of hate groups skyrocketed 30%, reaching 892 in 2015; 917 in 2016; 954 in 2017; 1,020 in 2018; and 940 in 2019. According to Mark Potok at the SPLC, Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign speeches containing "demonizing statements about Latinos and Muslims have electrified the radical right, leading to glowing endorsements from white nationalist leaders such as Jared Taylor and former Klansman David Duke." The relative strengths of hate groups have varied over time. For example, the Ku Klux Klan has markedly declined, while other white supremacist groups have substantially strengthened. In February 2018, the SPLC reported that black nationalist groups expanded to 233 chapters in the United States, up from 193 the previous year. The SPLC attributed this growth to a reaction to the mainstream rise of the alt-right, "the latest incarnation of white supremacy", along with the election of Trump as president. During the same year, neo-Nazi groups grew from 99 to 121, and anti-Muslim groups increased from 101 chapters to 114. Ku Klux Klan groups, meanwhile, fell from 130 groups to 72.

In 2024, the SPLC listed 533 organizations as active hate groups, categorized by type, as follows: anti-immigrant (17), anti-LGBTQ+ (96), anti-Muslim (31), antisemitic (14), Christian identity (41), general hate (76), hate music (10), Ku Klux Klan (14), male supremacy (16), neo-Confederate (4), neo-Nazi (61), neo-Völkisch (49), racist skinhead (10), radical traditional Catholicism (8), white nationalist (118). They also identified 838 antigovernmental groups.

Pundits, politicians, and some of the designated groups have objected to the SPLC's list. The Family Research Council disputed its designation in 2010, and the Center for Immigration Studies disputed the SPLC anti-immigrant designation in 2016. In January 2019, Center for Immigration Studies filed a lawsuit against the SPLC over the designation, which was dismissed in September 2019. The SPLC's hate group listings have also been criticized by some political observers and prominent Republicans.

Hate and extremist groups by type

Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as "the Klan", is the name of three distinct past and present groupings.

The following groups have been listed as active Klan groups in the SPLC's annual reports (years in parentheses refer to the year in which the group is included):

Neo-Nazi

Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or related ideologies. Common aspects of modern-day neo-Nazism include hatred or fear of minorities such as blacks, Hispanics, lesbian, gay, and transgender people, non-white immigrants, and sometimes even Christians, but their main hatred is focused on the Jews (their "cardinal enemy").

The following groups have been listed as active neo-Nazi groups in the SPLC's annual reports (years in parentheses refer to the year in which the group is included):

White nationalist

The SPLC listed 148 white nationalist groups and chapters as active in 2018, and 98 white nationalist groups and chapters as active in 2021. Its 2018 report noted: "White nationalist groups espouse white supremacist or white separatist ideologies, often focusing on the alleged inferiority of nonwhites. Groups listed in a variety of other categories — Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi, racist skinhead and Christian Identity — could also be fairly described as white nationalist." The following groups have been listed as active white separatist/white nationalist groups in the SPLC's annual reports (years in parentheses refer to the year in which the group is included):

Racist skinheads

The SPLC defines racist skinhead as "a particularly violent element of the white supremacist movement," often "referred to as the 'shock troops' of the hoped-for revolution." An offshoot of the skinhead subculture, racist skinheads promote antisemitism in addition to white supremacy. The SPLC's reports have noted that the racist skinhead movement "flourished during the 1980s through the 1990s and into the mid-2000s" but has declined since 2012, losing ground to "the racist 'alt-right' and new, younger neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups who are organizing themselves across diffuse social networking sites and platforms." The SPLC noted in its 2021 report, "With almost no young recruits, the racist skinhead movement's prominence within this country's white power movement has diminished steadily for years."

The following groups have been listed as active racist skinhead groups in the SPLC's annual reports (years in parentheses refer to the year in which the group is included):

Extreme antigovernment movement

The SPLC's 2021 report states: "Groups we list as antigovernment see the federal government as an enemy of the people and promote baseless conspiracy theories generally involving a secret cabal of elites seeking to institute a global, totalitarian government – a 'New World Order." The SPLC notes that the antigovernment movement includes the militia movement (including paramilitary organizations, such as the Three Percenters (also styled III%ers) and Oath Keepers); the "sovereign citizen" movement, which rejects the government's authority; the so-called "constitutional sheriff" movement, which holds that local sheriffs are the highest authority and can disregard federal laws; and tax protestor movement that claims that income taxes are unconstitutional and seeks to avoid paying such taxes.

SPLC notes that antigovernment groups "engage in groundless conspiracy theorizing, or advocate or adhere to extreme antigovernment doctrines" and added: "Antigovernment groups do not necessarily advocate or engage in violence or other criminal activities, though some have. Many warn of impending government violence or the need to prepare for a coming revolution. Many antigovernment groups are not racist."

The SPLC designated 566 extreme antigovernment groups as active in 2020, and 488 extreme antigovernment groups as active in 2021.

Of the 488 organizations designated as active in 2021, 92 were militia groups, 75 were "sovereign citizen" groups, three were "constitutional sheriff" groups, and 52 were "conspiracy propagandist" groups.

American Police Officers Alliance (2022)

Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (2020, 2021, 2022)

Idaho Constitutional Sheriffs (2021, 2022)

Protect America Now (2021, 2022)

Neo-Confederate

The SPLC classifies neo-Confederate groups as those with "a reactionary, revisionist predilection for symbols of the Confederate States of America, typically paired with a strong belief in the validity of the failed doctrines of nullification and secession — in the specific context of the antebellum South."

The following groups have been listed as active neo-Confederate groups in the SPLC's annual reports (years in parentheses refer to the year in which the group is included):

ACTBAC NC (2016, 2017, 2020, 2021, 2022)

Confederate 901 (2020)

Dixie Republic (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2024)

FreeMississippi (2016)

Heirs to the Confederacy (2020)

Identity Dixie (2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2024)

Kingdom Treasure Ministries (2014, 2015)

League of the South (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2024)

Livin' the Legacy (2014)

Mary Noel Kershaw Foundation (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)

Pace Confederate Depot (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)

Southern Culture Center (2014)

Southern Cultural Center (of Weogufka, Alabama) (2020, 2021, 2022, 2024)

Southern Future (2016, 2017)

Christian Identity

Christian Identity is a label applied to a wide variety of loosely affiliated believers and churches with a white supremacist and antisemitic theology that claims that White people are the true descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel.

The following groups have been listed as Christian Identity hate groups in the SPLC's annual reports (years in parentheses refer to the year in which the group is included):

Anti-LGBTQ

Anti-LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) or anti-gay can refer to activities in certain categories (or combinations of categories): attitudes against or discrimination against LGBTQ people, violence against LGBTQ people, opposition to LGBTQ rights, and religious opposition to homosexuality.

The following groups have been listed as active anti-LGBTQ hate groups in the SPLC's annual reports (years in parentheses refer to the year in which the group is included):

Eighty-six organizations were designated under this classification in 2023. This is an increase by about one-third from previous years and the highest number of anti-LGBTQ groups SPLC has ever listed.

Anti-immigrant

The SPLC categories "the most extreme" nativist and vigilante groups as anti-immigrant hate groups, those which espouse xenophobia. The group classifies the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and NumbersUSA, as the "big three" groups in the anti-immigrant movement.

Eighteen organizations were classified under this designation in the 2021 SPLC report.

Antisemitism

In its 2021 report, SPLC classified 61 organizations under the category of antisemitism as a "standalone ideology," while also noting the antisemitism "also undergirds much of the far right, unifying adherents across various hate ideologies." Holocaust denial is one hallmark of antisemitic organizations. Eighteen organizations were classified under this designation in the 2021 SPLC report.

SPLC previously had a Holocaust denial hate group category. In 2020, SPLC began to designating hate groups under a broader "antisemitism" category, and noted in its report for the following year that "2021 is the first year that those groups have been pulled out from under the General Hate ideology umbrella and featured on their own exclusive map." SPLC's report notes that this category is "Made up largely of hate groups that deny and obscure facts about the Holocaust, as well as chapters of the Nation of Islam."

The following groups have been listed as active Holocaust denial groups in the SPLC's annual reports (years in parentheses refer to the year in which the group is included):

Neo-Völkisch

In its 2017 report (issued in 2018), the SPLC added neo-Völkisch Asatru pagan groups to its hate group list for the first time. The SPLC described these groups as "[b]orn out of an atavistic defiance of modernity and rationalism" and characterized by "organized ethnocentricity and archaic notions of gender." In its 2021 report, SPLC listed 32 groups and group chapters under the neo-Völkisch category.

Asatru Folk Assembly (2017, 2018, 2021, 2022)

Black Sun Tribe Project, The (2021, 2022)

Dakota Prairie Asatru (2021, 2022)

Easter Tidings/Carolyn Emerick (2021, 2022)

Folkgard of Holda and Odin (2017, 2018)

Gallows Tree Wotansvolk Alliance (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018) – listed from 2014 to 2016 in neo-Nazi category, moved to Neo-Völkisch category beginning in 2017)

Gallows Tree Wotansvolk (2017)

Hearth & Helm LLC (2021, 2022)

Hoosier Headhunters Fight Club (2017)

Pacific Northwest Wolfpack Kindred (2018)

The Gallowglasses Fight Club (2017)

The Varangians Fight Club (2017)

Wolf Age (2017, 2018)

Wolves of Vinland (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022) – listed in 2015–2016 in the white separatist/nationalist category, moved to Neo-Völkisch category beginning in 2017

Women for Aryan Unity (2021, 2022)

Anti-Muslim

Anti-Muslim hate groups are described by the SPLC as groups which exhibit extreme hostility against Muslims, by depicting Muslims as "fundamentally alien, ... irrational, intolerant, and violent" and accusing Islam of "sanctioning pedophilia, coupled with intolerance for homosexuals and women." Anti-Muslim hate groups espouse conspiratorial views of American Muslims, viewing them "as a fifth column intent on undermining and eventually replacing American democracy and Western civilization with Islamic despotism, a conspiracy theory known as 'civilization jihad.'"

In its 2021 report, SPLC listed 50 groups and group chapters under the anti-Muslim category.

The following groups have been listed as anti-Muslim hate groups in the SPLC's annual reports (years in parentheses refer to the year in which the group is included):

"General hate" category

The following groups have been listed as other or miscellaneous hate groups in the SPLC's annual reports (years in parentheses refer to the year in which the group is included):

In the 2021 SPLC report, 295 groups and group chapters were listed in the "general hate" category, including 11 in the "hate music" category, 1 in the "male supremacy" category, 9 in the "radical traditionalist Catholic" category, and 274 in the "other" category.

White power music is music that promotes white nationalism and expresses racism against non-whites. Genres include Nazi punk, Rock Against Communism, hatecore, and National Socialist black metal.

The following groups have been listed as active racist music/hate music groups in the SPLC's annual reports (years in parentheses refer to the year in which the group is included):

The SPLC added misogynistic male supremacy groups to its hate groups list for the first time in its 2017 report (issued in 2018), stating, "The vilification of women by these groups makes them no different than other groups that demean entire populations, such as the LGBT community, Muslims, or Jews, based on their inherent characteristics."

A Voice for Men (2017, 2018, 2021)

Return of Kings (2017, 2018)

XY Crew (2022)

According to the SPLC, radical traditionalist Catholics, who "may make up the largest single group of serious anti-Semites in America", subscribe to an ideology that is rejected by the Vatican and some 70 million mainstream American Catholics. They are highly associated with sedevacantism and integrism, the latter of which the SPLC uses as a synonym for radical-traditionalist positions.

The following groups have been listed as active radical traditional Catholic hate groups in the SPLC's annual reports (years in parentheses refer to the year in which the group is included):