Addicted To Hate

Inside the movement that’s trying to help white supremacists kick violent racism for good

- Wes Enzinna

ON JULY 4, 2013, one of Shane Johnson’s pals pushed through the front door of his trailer and announced that “a bunch of black guys” had just “said some shit to him.” Johnson was small and lithe, tattooed from neck to toe with swastikas, and his throat was inked with a portrait of Jesus and the words “I AM NOT A JEW.” As a teenager, he’d earned the nickname “Punchy” for his willingness to make up for his stature with an even shorter temper. It served him well as the leader of his Ku Klux Klan chapter in Kokomo, Indiana.

On his orders, he and several of his buddies tied bandannas to padlocks and stuffed them into their back pockets. Johnson, who had been awake for three days on an Adderall and whiskey bender, led his posse to a nearby park where a band was performing an Independence Day concert for a crowd of families. Johnson didn’t see the kids who had trash-talked his friend, but on the edge of the grass he spotted something even more offensive—an African American man and a white woman sitting on a blanket holding hands. He and his crew fanned out, swinging their padlocks at anyone within reach, shouting, “White power, you niggers!”

Indiana has long been a hotbed of white supremacist activity. In 1923, Kokomo hosted the largest kkk rally in US history. Two years later, half the city’s residents were Klan members. Today, infamous movement leaders like White Aryan Resistance founder Tom Metzger and altright figurehead Matt Heimbach live in the state, and Klan branches remain active in major cities. Johnson grew up in one of Kokomo’s best-known Klan families; his dad even appeared in full robe and hood on The Jerry Springer Show in the ’90s. “Nobody liked me,” he says. “I didn’t have any friends or anything.”