Top 10 Notorious Hate Groups

Thought to have originated in the 1960s at San Quentin State Prison, the Aryan Brotherhood is a white supremacist prison gang that is reputed to perform much like an organized crime syndicate, especially within prison society. Often known as the AB or the Brand, the Aryan Brotherhood has been accused of running a structured system that arranges for murder, drug smuggling and other activities within prison walls.

The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the New Black Panthers “a virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization” – and in fact, its leaders have blamed Jews for the 9/11 terrorist attacks while its manifesto states the white race intends to commit genocide against all non-white peoples. Founded in 1989, the New Black Panthers have even been denounced as a racist hate group by members of the original Black Panthers, who refute connections with the new organization.

Organized in 1968 by Rabbi Meir Kahane (May-er Ka-hawn-ah), the Jewish Defense League advocates against anti-Semitism but frequently uses violent and dangerous tactics to do so. The JDL is also explicitly anti-Arab; one member killed 29 Muslims as they prayed at a mosque in 1994, an act that the JDL defended as a “preventative measure.” For this and other activities, the League was named a right-wing terrorist group by the FBI.

Detroit is the birthplace of the National Socialist Movement, which in 1994 was formed by Jeff Schoep (Jeff Scoop) out of what had previously been the National Socialist American Workers Freedom Movement. The party is one of the largest neo-Nazi organizations in the United States, with 61 chapters in 35 states, and it’s known for its public use of Nazi symbolism and clothing. NSM material has proclaimed Adolf Hitler the “beloved Holy Father of our age” and “a visionary in every respect.” In recent years, immigration protest has become a more prominent feature of the party’s activities.

Working class British youth formed the first groups of skinheads in the late 1960s, originally with no racist agenda. Over time, however, a number of white power skinhead groups developed; and while there have also been anti-racist skinheads, those with a racist theme are most often identified with the name. The white supremacist, anti-Jewish skinheads grew in prominence in the U.S. in the 1980s, with many allied with such groups as the Aryan Youth Movement, Aryan National Front and the Ku Klux Klan. Skinhead gangs are associated with frequent violence against minorities.

An Islamist fundamentalist movement that began in Afghanistan, the Taliban governed that country from 1996 to 2001. During that time, the Taliban was condemned by international agencies for its massacre of Afghan citizens and its brutal treatment of women. In addition, the regime is said to have kept UN food support from reaching 160,000 civilians and to have decimated massive amounts of fertile land and thousands of homes. The Taliban was overthrown by U.S.-led forces due to its association with Al-Qaeda and now operates as an insurgency movement, with many of its activities now classified as terrorism.

Although the Westboro Baptist Church was founded in 1955, it only gained prominence as a hate group in the late 1990s. The Church, which is unaffiliated with any recognized Baptist alliance, is known for picketing with signs declaring “God Hates Fags” and frequently holds public, intentionally provocative protests against homosexuality. It first gained prominence in 1998, when CNN filmed members picketing the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay murder victim. The group claims that the deaths of American soldiers are payback for American support of homosexuality. The Church is mostly comprised of members of the family and friends of its founder Fred Phelps, who died in 2014.

The militant Islamic group which masterminded and carried out the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Al-Qaeda believes in a global jihad, a holy war against those not of the Sunni faith. Founded by Osama bin Laden and other leaders in the late 1980s, Al-Qaeda engineered the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa that killed more than 200 people, as well as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and many other acts of terrorism. After bin Laden’s death in 2011, Al-Qaeda became fractured and less powerful, though it still continues on a smaller scale.

The violent and infamous Ku Klux Klan has its origins in the post-Civil War years and then gained its greatest prominence in the 1920s. The group is a white supremacist organization that is also bitterly opposed to Jews, Catholics, homosexuals and immigrants. Known for its white hooded robes, cross burnings and lynchings, the Klan orchestrated a campaign of terror for many years in the south. Currently, there are estimated to be between 5,000 and 8,000 Klan members in the U.S.

Before we reveal our top pick, here are a few dishonorable mentions:
- White Aryan Resistance

- British National Party

- Creativity Movement

- Family Research Council

- Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS)

Beginning in the 1920s as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, The Nazis, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, governed Germany and started a genocidal campaign aimed at destroying those not of Aryan blood from the 1930s on. This culminated most infamously in the establishment of a system that slaughtered 6,000,000 Jews, as well as hundreds of thousands of gypsies, homosexuals, disabled individuals and other groups. Nazi scientists also performed brutal experiments on unwilling prisoners. In the present day, neo-Nazi groups continue to promote the Aryan supremacist goals of the original Nazi Party.

Do you agree with our choices? What other notorious hate groups deserve to be on this list? For more enthralling top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.