National Vanguard (American organization)
| Founded | 2005 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Kevin Alfred Strom and former members of the National Alliance |
| Type | White Nationalist |
| Headquarters | Charlottesville, Virginia, United States |
|
Official language
|
English |
National Vanguard is an American white nationalist organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia, founded in 2005 by Kevin Alfred Strom and former members of the National Alliance.
The group was founded by dissident members of the National Alliance. The National Alliance's 5-man Executive Committee, a think-tank created by Erich Gliebe five months earlier to explore new ideas, issued a formal declaration called "A Time for Leadership." The declaration decried then-Chairman Erich Gliebe's dissolution of the National Alliance Board of Directors and his reducing of its composition to include merely himself and COO Shaun Walker. It called for a reconstitution of the Board of Directors, and the merger of the Board with the Executive Committee in both membership and function. Gliebe and Walker rejected the declaration.
In response, Gliebe and Walker claimed that Kevin Strom was not performing his job well as editor of the National Alliance's magazine, which was sometimes months late. There was a pay dispute where Kevin Strom claimed that Shaun Walker was not paying Strom his full salary, which became a public dispute within Internet chatrooms. This pay dispute and other internal conflicts created an atmosphere of factional personality conflicts which grew for 6 months until they erupted.
There were no legal options to take, so in April 2005 "National Vanguard" was formally organized by some former National Alliance Unit Coordinators and five members of the Executive Committee.
The main issues cited for the split with the National Alliance were over the creation of an expanded Board of Directors, prompt and professional publishing of a news-magazine and open accounting of all funds collected. The new organization picked Kevin Alfred Strom as its new leader, but a Board of Directors was not created. Within 8 months half of all National Vanguard members had either resigned or formed another new group. Most of the key leaders who planned the initial coup from the National Alliance group quit the National Vanguard within 15 months, but without all the open Internet airing of "internal laundry." In January 2007 Strom was arrested by the FBI and Federal Marshals for child pornography related charges. In 2008 he pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography (although he maintains that the possession was inadvertent) and was sentenced to 23 months in prison.
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