National Renaissance Party (United States)

The National Renaissance Party (NRP) was an American neo-Nazi group founded in 1949 by James H. Madole. One of the parties that helped found the NRP was the Animist Party, established in 1945 by a young science fiction fan and right-wing activist James H. Madole. Mertig soon handed over the leadership of the party to Madole, a position he held for the next 30 years. Its headquarters were in the Yorkville area of New York City.

In April 1953 the NRP established a think tank under the name of the American Committee for the Advancement of Western Culture and under the direction of H. Keith Thompson. By 1954, government investigators, although unable to determine the exact size of the party, estimated its membership to be between 200 and 700, The group also had an "elite Security Echelon," headed in the 1960s by covertly Jewish United Klans of America leader and Odinist Dan Burros, who killed himself on the same day in 1965 that his ethnicity was revealed by The New York Times. on a field of red as its symbol. The "Elite Guard" (stormtroopers) wore gray and black uniforms Madole was also influenced by the theosophical ideas of Helena Blavatsky, which he used as a theoretical underpinning for his opposition to racial mixing. The NRP also maintained good relations with a number of far-out mystical groups, such as the Church of Satan, whose founder, Anton LaVey, was a personal friend of Madole's.

International Relations

Among the stranger aspects of the party, they maintained an Overseas Office, which was headed by a man, who claimed to be half-French and half-Apache, who had previously attended the CPUSA-run Jefferson School of Social Science, by the name of Manny Truhill.

They would support the Socialist Reich Party for supporting Communism against Jews.

NRP maintained contacts with Pekka Siitoin whose groups likewise blended satanism and Nazism. Siitoin's Patriotic Popular Front published NRP's material in Finnish, and Siitoin appeared in NRP's publications.

The National Renaissance

The NRP published a journal, The National Renaissance, which, unlike its political activities in New York City, was widely influential in far-right circles.

According to The New York Times, the report found "that the National Renaissance Party appeared to have controvened the Smith Act (against advocacy of overthrow of the Government by force or violence) as much as had the Communist party itself" and that the NRP "had 'virtually borrowed wholesale' from Fascist and Nazi dictators material for its program," which included the abolition of American democracy, a "fascist" economy controlled by corporations, deportation of "unassimilable" people and oppression of Jews. Mostaccio, who attacked the detective with a flagpole, was convicted in June 1963 of assault but acquitted of the additional charge of "violating the weapons law by being in possession of the flagpole."

The White Castle plot

Later that year, 8 members of the NRP were arrested in New York and charged with "planning to incite rioting" at two White Castle restaurants in The Bronx. According to the charges, the NRP plotted riots in response to demonstrations sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality demanding an end to racially discriminatory hiring practices at the White Castles.

The 8 NRP members were indicted in August 1963. District Attorney Isidore Dollinger was quoted in The New York Times as saying that he considered "the prosecution of these individuals, who are closely connected with the American Renaissance Party [sic] — a Nazi movement — to be of the utmost importance." Soon thereafter, both Burros and Madole were released pending appeal.

Controversies over NRP use of public facilities

Yorkville, Manhattan

In the summer of 1965, the NRP applied to the New York City Board of Education for permission to hold party meetings at the Robert Wagner Junior High School at 220 E. 76th Street in Yorkville. The Board initially refused, citing concerns that "the proposed meeting might tend to cause dissension or provoke disorder."

The NRP held its first meeting at the school on March 18, 1966. James H. Madole and others spoke to an audience of about 200 people, who greeted the NRP leadership with general derision. The Board refused, insisting that the NRP, rather than being a political party, was a "fascist" and "subversive" organization. Protests against the meeting turned into riots in black sections of the small city and over 30 protestors were arrested for vandalism and throwing rocks at police officers.