How a Black Man ‘Outsmarted’ a Neo-Nazi Group — And Became Their New Leader

James Stern

By Katie Mettler

Without notifying his followers or even his inner circle, the longtime president of a legacy neo-Nazi group signed over its control to a black civil rights activist from California. Now, James Hart Stern, a 54-year-old with a history of infiltrating white supremacist groups, is the new leader of the National Socialist Movement.

Stern’s first move as president was to address a pending lawsuit against the group by asking a Virginia judge to find it guilty of conspiring to commit violence at the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. Next, he plans to transform the hate group’s website into a space for Holocaust history lessons.

“I did the hard and dangerous part,” Stern told The Washington Post in his first interview since taking over the National Socialist Movement. “As a black man, I took over a neo-Nazi group and outsmarted them.”

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