EXCLUSIVE: A professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill revealed during a panel at Harvard University that an Antifa-linked group requested his gun club to provide security during the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
"Prior to that day, as the planning for the defense of Charlottesville proceeded, the local Anarchist People of Color Collective, or APOC, had requested that Redneck Revolt be present to secure Justice Park for a wide variety of activists who were expected to assemble," Dwayne Dixon told Harvard faculty members and students who gathered in February 2018 to discuss the merits of potential violent political activism.
UNC placed Dixon on leave on Monday, Sept. Sept. 29, after reports of his activism and run-ins with the law related to that activism surfaced. He was reinstated on Friday, Oct. 3, after pushback from supporters.
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Harvard's Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights abruptly deleted the video of the panel, which was first published on Feb. 3, 2018, from its official YouTube page early last week.
Dixon was a member of Redneck Revolt, a left-wing gun club that placed a banner on its website amid the controversy midday last Wednesday saying the group disbanded in 2019.
APOC is a loosely knit group of anarchists that traces back to the early 2000s. While the group does not appear to advertise publicly, The Anarchist Library sheds some light on its activities.
For example, APOC has released "principles of unity" in the past, consisting of 10 bullet point statements.
"We call for a social revolution to erect a new society entirely," the first point says.
The group also says it opposes "any forms of capitalism and class oppression and support the liberation of the poor and the workers" and "oppression of womyn, queers, transfolk, two spirits, youth, genderqueers, differently able-bodied people, people with mental health complexities, animals and all that are oppressed."
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A 2009 mission statement signed only "APOC Philly" calls for more coordination from the group.
"Revolution, if it is to succeed, requires a coordinated, comprehensive network of dedicated revolutionaries," the statement said. "Of course, APOC has existed for some time now. However, we have not thus far been able to create and maintain a form suitable to our needs."
During the panel, Dixon also mentioned other groups to whom Redneck Revolt was "connected."
Those groups included the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a hard-left alternative to the American Federation of Labor, Muslims for Social Justice, a North Carolina-based group that advocates for left-wing causes and the anti-war group About Face, also known as Iraq Veterans Against War.
"And we have all these other linkages to radical left organizations," Dixon said. "I mean, Ready the Ground, … The Raqqa Society, all of these people are in conversation and are shoulder to shoulder. Yeah, the time for prudent action, planning and working with comrades in different kinds of decision-making processes, developing new kinds of horizontal organizing."
Ready the Ground is a North Carolina-based group that says it "strengthens movements for social justice in North Carolina by offering training in nonviolent people-power action and marshaling."
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Left-wing Antifa and similar anarchist groups claim to operate without serious organization, and instead portray themselves as individual antifascists who come together to protest.
However, Antifa itself has chapters, most notably Rose City Antifa in Portland and Atlanta Antifascists.
The Trump administration has vowed to crack down on Antifa groups, and recently declared Antifa a domestic terror organization via executive order.
"Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities and our system of law," the order says. "It uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide to accomplish these goals."
"Individuals associated with and acting on behalf of Antifa further coordinate with other organizations and entities for the purpose of spreading, fomenting and advancing political violence and suppressing lawful political speech," the executive order notes. "This organized effort designed to achieve policy objectives by coercion and intimidation is domestic terrorism."
Dixon and UNC did not return requests for comment. Neither did IWW, Muslims for Social Justice or Ready the Ground.
APOC and The Raqqa Society could not be reached for comment.
Harvard declined to comment.
