Trends in Hate-Title Here

The source information for this section is compiled from a number of resources, most notably from the records of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center (and their websites splcenter.org, and tolerance.org), a tireless group who track and fight active hate groups in the United States; from the United States Census Bureau; from the Center for Disease Control; from the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and from various other federal, state & county websites/agencies. Of note is that the Southern Poverty Law Center does not include every known hate group in their tallies. For example, they do not recognize the radical Islamic hate group, Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, founded in southern California by Kevin James. Therefore, the figures presented here are considered conservative estimates of the actual number of active hate groups in the United States.

Hate Groups
The links below provide national, regional, and statewide overviews of the number and types of hate groups active in the United States.

Hate Groups and Economic Variables
Graphical represenations of associations between hate groups and unemployment rates.

Unemployment Rates in active Hate Group Communities (HGCs) versus nonHGCs: National and Regional data

Of note is that over the years the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has added classes of hate groups as they have emerged; and, the SPLC has re-classified some hate groups. For example, the primarily southern hate group Council of Conservative Citizens had been classified by the SPLC through 2005 as “Other”; however, in 2006 the "Other" class of hate groups was changed to "General Hate" by the SPLC. Additionally, the Council of Conservative Citizens was re-classified by the SPLC as a "White Nationalist" type of hate group in 2006. In 2007 the SPLC began to classify some hate groups as "Anti-Gay," "Anti-Immigrant," "Holocaust Denial," "Racist Music," and "Radical Traditionalist Catholic" which we believe constitutes an improvement in SPLC’s categorization of hate groups (in 2010, however, the SPLC stopped classifying hate groups in this manner and returned to the "General Hate" classification). The graphs and tables of SPLC-identified active hate groups shown here have taken the 2007 changes in classification into account; specifically, we have re-classified all SPLC-identified hate groups beginning in 1998 with the 2007 SPLC-identified classes of hate groups. Therefore, in the tables and graphs found here there will be no "Other" category (the term "General Hate" will be used to describe these hate groups). The archival reclassification was done of the SPLC-identified hate groups by us to more accurately show trends of similar types of hate groups.

Located here and in some of our trend analyses (see our Trend Reports), a very small number of specific hate groups are classified differently than the SPLC classification. For example, trendsinhate believes that a few of the SPLC-classified "General Hate" groups are more accurately classified as "Racist Skinhead," "White Nationalist," or "Neo-Nazi" groups. Our reclassification of these groups is reflected in our Tables and Graphs.

Although we did not make these classification changes in our tables and graphs, some hate groups might be reasonably classified into a category of hate group not designated them by the SPLC. For instance, the Westboro Baptist Church had been re-classified in 2007 by the SPLC as an "Anti-Gay" hate group (previously it had been classified as a "General Hate" group). However, the Westboro Baptist Church—as well as the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries and some of the "Radical Traditionalist Catholic" hate groups—might just as accurately be classified as a "Christian Identity" hate group. Additionally, "Holocaust Denial" hate groups, while distinct from "Neo-Nazi" hate groups, both share a hatred of Jews; as such they might correctly be classified under a broader "Anti-Jewish" category. Moreover, although not classified in this manner at trendsinhate or by the SPLC, we believe: (a) that a "Jewish Identity" category would better capture the nature of the Jewish Defense League (classified by SPLC as a "General Hate" hate group); and, (b) that a "Hispanic Identity" category would better capture the nature of the Voz de Aztlan (also classified by SPLC as a "General Hate" hate group).

The graphs here are visual representations of the facts reported in the tables, although not every table will have a corresponding graph. Source information is noted for each graph; however, trendsinhate compiled the facts in the graphs and trendsinhate performed the statistical analyses and other mathematical calculations. Therefore, we take full responsibility for the content of the graphic and numeric facts shown in the graphs and tables. Permission to distribute any of the information contained in the graphs and tables is required in writing by contacting the webmaster. Please don’t forget to visit SPLC’s websites—splcenter.org and tolerance.org—or to support their hate-fighting efforts.