KKK, other hate groups showing up in Bay Area

Signs with an anti-KKK message are present during a rally to denounce hate and embrace diversity on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, at Townsend Park in Albany, N.Y. The Capital District Coalition Against Islamophobia held the rally in response to the Ku Klux Klan's victory parade in North Carolina to celebrate President-elect Donald Trump's win. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union) less Signs with an anti-KKK message are present during a rally to denounce hate and embrace diversity on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016, at Townsend Park in Albany, N.Y. The Capital District Coalition Against Islamophobia ... more Photo: Cindy Schultz, Albany Times Union Buy photo Photo: Cindy Schultz, Albany Times Union Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close KKK, other hate groups showing up in Bay Area 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

It turns out that the Bay Area’s reputation as a bastion of tolerance doesn’t make it immune to hate groups — eight of them, in fact, according to a new list compiled by a national watchdog group.

In San Francisco, the list names the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the white nationalist Counter-Currents Publishing house as having offices, although contacting them is tough. Walnut Creek is pegged as home to the anti-Muslim Islamthreat.com, and the Black Riders Liberation Party black separatist group is placed in Oakland.

In all, there are two more hate groups in the Bay Area than in 2015, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The group compiles its list annually, and in Wednesday’s report it said the number of hate groups in the U.S. rose to 917 in 2016, up from 892 the year before. Most alarmingly, it says, the number of anti-Muslim hate groups nearly tripled, to 101 from 34 the year before.

Mark Potok, editor of the center’s quarterly Intelligence Report, said last year “was an unprecedented year for hate,” which he blamed at least partially on the rise of President Trump and his followers.

“The country saw a resurgence of white nationalism that imperils the racial progress we’ve made, along with the rise of a president whose policies reflect the values of white nationalists,” Potok said. “In Steve Bannon, these extremists think they finally have an ally who has the president’s ear.”

Bannon is chief strategist to the president and formerly ran Breitbart News, a fringe-right website. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Efforts to contact the KKK, Counter-Currents and other organizations listed as hate groups were not successful.

The center’s compilation of organizations ran heavily right-wing in many parts of the country, but in the Bay Area it spanned a wider gamut — taking in groups such as the Black Riders as well as ones it considered jihadist, such as As-Sabiqun in Oakland.

Also on the list were branches in Mountain View and Santa Cruz of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer, a racist website that features stories deriding Jews and Muslims and advocating white power. The site, run by white nationalist Andrew Anglin, made it onto the list because Internet chatter revealed book-reading meetings in the two cities, said Ryan Lenz, an editor with the law center.

“Andrew Anglin’s Daily Stormer has sought to move from cyberspace to the real world, or what they call ‘meat space,’ and one of the things he’s been doing is forming book clubs to read Nazi literature,” Lenz said. “That’s what’s been happening in Santa Cruz and Mountain View. And where they are meeting changes day to day.”

Lenz said Counter-Currents is one of the biggest white nationalist websites and publishers in the country.

The KKK wound up with a tag in San Francisco because of flyers from the group that appeared on streets last summer. Sources in antiracist groups say one man living in the Marina neighborhood was principally responsible for Klan activity in the city, but efforts to contact anyone associated with the group were unsuccessful.

“I’m a little bit surprised that there are racist groups in San Francisco, but not really,” said Alan Schlosser, a senior counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. “It’s a diverse city. These are views that exist in this country, and San Francisco is not immune.

“It’s good that there’s sunlight being shown on these groups so they don’t just operate in the shadows.”

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron

Read the report

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s report on hate groups in the U.S. can be read at http://bit.ly/2lPOMOL.

Bay Area

hate groups

White Nationalist

Counter-Currents

Publishing

San Francisco

Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

San Francisco

General hate

As-Sabiqun

Oakland

Masjid al Islam

Oakland

Black Separatist

Black Riders Liberation Party

Oakland

Black Nationalist

Nation of Islam

Oakland

Anti-Muslim

Islamthreat.com

Walnut Creek

Neo-Nazi

The Daily Stormer

Mountain View

Santa Cruz