Photos: Associated Press

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) declared today that the white-supremacy movement continues to expand in the U.S. -- as does violence by white-nationalist groups.

The civil-rights and legal-advocacy nonprofit said in its just-published "Year in Hate" report that the U.S. had 954 active hate groups in 2017, a 4-percent increase from the year before. The sheer number of such organizations in the country, ranging from "alt-right" to black nationalist, is notable. But the SPLC says its list "understates the true level of hate in America, because a growing number of extremists, particularly those who identify with the alt-right, operate mainly online and may not be formally affiliated with a hate group."

Oregon, with its population of just over 4 million, appears to have a disproportionate number of hate-based organizations within its borders. (The U.S. overall has nearly 325 million people.) Below are the SPLC-listed hate groups that are based in or have chapters in Oregon or southwestern Washington. Some of the organizations on the list dispute the center’s definition of them.

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ACT for America

Anti-Muslim groups, the SPLC writes, “are a relatively new phenomenon in the United States,” but their numbers have grown dramatically in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This group, the center states, has a chapter in Silverton, Oregon.

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American Front

The SPLC categorized the American Front as a “racist skinhead” group, which it describes as a “particularly violent element of the white supremacist movement and have often been referred to as the ‘shock troops’ of the hoped-for revolution.”

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Black Riders Liberation Party

The black-nationalist group, writes Extremist Watch, views "all of the United States as a white supremacist entity." In 2016, Jeelani Shareef, head of the party's Portland chapter, told the Portland Mercury, "At the end of the day, no one else is going to save our people but us."

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Crew 38/Northwest Hammerskins

The white-supremacist Hammerskins formed in Dallas 30 years ago. Crew 38, writes the SPLC, is a faction of the group.

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The Daily Stormer

The Daily Stormer is a white-supremacist news website, and the SPLC categorizes it as a key part of neo-Nazi groups that view “ ‘the Jew’ as their cardinal enemy and trace social problems to a Jewish conspiracy that supposedly controls governments, financial institutions and the media.”

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Identity Evropa

This is a recently formed white-supremacist organization that reportedly seeks the “Nazification of America.”

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Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ/Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge

The SPLC says these black-nationalist groups are "antiwhite." ISUPK's Natazar Ha Ahsh recently told Willamette Week: "We're a love group, so to speak; we love our nation. But the nation that opposes us loving each other will label us a hate group."

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National Socialist Movement

The SPLC list includes a Salem branch of this nationwide white-supremacist group.

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The Pacific Coast Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

The Klan, formed after the Civil War, is the oldest ongoing American hate group. The SPLC says it’s actually in decline nationwide, suggesting younger white racists today prefer slick, 21-st century white-nationalist branding rather than being associated with the Klan’s white hoods and flowing robes.

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Oregonians for Immigration Reform

The SPLC categorizes this group, based in McMinnville, as a “General Hate Group,” ones that espouse “a variety of hateful doctrines” ranging from anti-immigration to Holocaust denial.

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Rense Radio

Rense Radio Network

The Ashland-based Rense has been described as anti-Semitic and the purveyor of wild conspiracy theories.

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True Cascadia

This white-supremacist group, the Eugene Register-Guard reported last year, "has been placing posters around Southern Oregon for months, alarming some residents who also have been taken aback by hostile exchanges on social media." One tweet from True Cascadia: "Mother Nature is a White Supremacist. She has continuously shown favor to her mightiest children."

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Vanguard America

This neo-Nazi group, writes the Anti-Defamation League, "romanticizes the notion that people with 'white blood' have a special bond with 'American soil.'" James Alex Fields -- the man who allegedly drove his car into Charlottesville counter-protesters last year, killing a woman -- has been linked to the group.

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White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of America

The Klan might be in decline overall, but the Pacific Northwest has at least two branches of the infamous group. This one is based in Vancouver, Wash.

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Wolves of Vinland

"The group's members," The Daily Beast wrote in 2015, "appear to be all white, based on dozens of pictures they post to their Facebook page, and they ascribe to a brand of neo-pagan Norse theology that white supremacists often find appealing." Portland's Jack Donovan, who has been connected to the group, insisted in a 2017 essay that he is not a white nationalist.

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Oregon 'active antigovernment groups'

“Generally,” writes the SPLC, antigovernment groups “define themselves as opposed to the ‘New World Order,’ engage in groundless conspiracy theorizing or advocate or adhere to extreme antigovernment doctrines.” The center makes clear that their inclusion in its hate-group report “does not imply that the groups themselves advocate or engage in violence or other criminal activities, or are racist.” Here are the ones in Oregon, according to the SPLC:

III%ers Security Force

III% United Patriots

American Patriot Party

American Patriots III%

Central Oregon Constitutional Guard

Embassy of Heaven

Freedom Bound International

Freedom from Government

Heirs of Patrick Henry

John Birch Society

McCutcheons Ink.

News With Views

Oath Keepers

Southern Oregon Constitutional Guard

Spectre Training Group

State of Jefferson Formation

Three Percenters-III%ers

The Voice of Freedom

You Have the Right

UPDATE:

Colby Damon Olsen of the Southern Oregon Constitutional Guard takes issue with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s categorization of his group. He insists they’re not antigovernment, that they believe in “constitutional government -- for both sides, the left and the right.” He says the Southern Oregon Constitutional Guard is essentially a local veterans group that’s dedicated to improving the local community through graffiti cleanup, school-supply drives and other volunteer activities. Olsen says the SPLC’s misinterpretation comes from his group’s past association with the Pacific Patriots Network, an umbrella organization for many militia-style groups. “I’m a pacifist,” Olsen says.

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More

• Read the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Year in Hate" report.