Since it's founding in 2019, the Nationalist Social Club, or NSC-131, has been expanding its membership in New England. The group began in Eastern Massachusetts and has established small chapters throughout the region. The Southern Poverty Law Center identifies them as a neo-Nazi group that targets immigrants and members of the LGBTQ+ and Jewish communities.
NSC-131 made headlines last year after flashing a "Keep Boston Irish" sign at the South Boston St. Patrick's Day parade. As the group has expanded, activists have voiced concern about military veterans who have been joining its ranks.
Kristofer Goldsmith is the CEO of Task Force Butler Institute, a nonprofit that monitors domestic extremist groups and trains veterans to counter them. He says that while veterans aren't more likely to hold extremist beliefs, extremist organizations target them for recruitment.
"We are effective members of teams, and we as individual veterans carry with us a certain amount of credibility that we lend to any organization that we become a part of," he says.
Goldsmith said his group has observed NSC-131 to be one of the most openly violent neo-Nazi organizations in the United States.
"There are certainly bigger neo-Nazi organizations," he said. "There are certainly more active neo-Nazi organizations, but few are hitting the streets so often to do violence against vulnerable communities."
To counter extremist organizations such as NSC-131, Task Force Butler Institute has infiltrated both online and in-person extremist meeting spaces, and gathered evidence of violent conspiracies that can be shared with law enforcement and journalists.
Goldsmith said in the past, it's been difficult to prosecute members of domestic extremist organizations. He added that work from organizations like Task Force Butler is important because the evidence they gather can help with cases.
Last week, Charles Murrell III, a Black man from Boston, filed a lawsuit against the neo-Nazi organization Patriot Front after he allegedly suffered a violent assault from the group last year.
"It's this type of civil suit and the evidence that's going to be gathered from that will be admissible in criminal proceedings" Goldsmith says.
In the meantime, Goldsmith hopes organizations like Task Force Butler Institute repair the reputation of veterans in this country.
"We know after January 6th that our community took a hit in the mind of the average American," he says. "So we are very conscious of that and we are going to use our privilege and we are going to use our status as veterans to help restore some faith in democracy and justice in the United States."
