The Southern Poverty Law Center issues an annual report tracking far-right movements across the country. Its most recent findings, which were released at the end of May, include information on the militia movement and its connections to the Commonwealth.
Since 2020, at least 20 localities in Virginia have had active militia groups, according to media reports, though SPLC researcher Rachel Goldwasser says that number’s a bit higher.
She wrote the section of The Year in Hate and Extremism focused on militias and says the groups have adjusted how they organize following the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. capitol. It makes the groups more difficult to track, Goldwasser says.
"It's almost like reformatting," Goldwasser says. "Where instead of what we saw where there were national militias, many of them that were top down, there was one leader, everybody sort of answered to that leader, now you have many leaders. You have many members, but they also were kind of working in tandem."
Militias generally form under the auspices of aiding local law enforcement and being able to help in disaster situations. But during Hurricane Helene recovery efforts, militia members in states adjacent to Virginia reportedly impeded aid.
There’s an upside to the SPLC’s findings.
"Most people don't feel like extreme views and extreme actions are the ones that they want to be taking," according to Goldwasser. "They want to live in a society, clearly, that is far more peaceful than that. And so I do have hope for all of us, because as long as that number sort of remains at the ratio that it does, I think that we can hopefully look forward to a bright and prosperous future.
Another portion of the SPLC report indicates a decline in neo-Confederate groups. In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin recently vetoed a bill that would have removed such organizations’ tax-exempt status.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.