Contents
As of December 2025, CAFA’s most recent blog article was posted in late 2022. 2 However, CAFA’s work has appeared on other websites and news stories since then. 3
Background
Antifa groups claim inspiration from 1930s radical-left German street protesters opposed to the rising Nazi regime. 2 Modern “black bloc” Antifa surfaced in the 1980s, allegedly to oppose neo-fascist “skinhead” movements. 2
Like other Antifa organizations, Chicago Anti-Fascist Action lacks a centralized structure and is secretive about its membership and leadership. The organization’s public-facing front is a blog that posts about alleged threats from fascists and racists in Chicago. Neither the website’s homepage nor any blog posts mention CAFA members or leaders by name. 2 2
CAFA’s website says that the group is not “Not affiliated with South Side [Anti-Racist Action],” another Antifa group. 4
On an updated list from 2025, the Anarchist Federation placed CAFA on a list of Antifa and far-left “researchers.” 5
Activity
Chicago Anti-Fascist Action has been described as a “research collective.” The organization primarily collects public and leaked private information regarding alleged far-right activists, fascists, and racists in the Chicago area, and reveals these individuals on the group’s blog. 3
However, CAFA or its members have also likely been involved in violent street protests. A May 2020 article from the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the Chicago government attributed looting and violence during the aftermath of the death of George Floyd to far-right and far-left groups, including Antifa organizations. When questioned by the Sun-Times, a spokesperson for CAFA responded, “Antifa isn’t an organization. Anti-fascism is an ideology designed to fight the very things that Trump stands for: mass detentions of refugees, white nationalist groups, the Bugaloo boys, and terrorizing communities of color.” 1
In October 2019, CAFA signed a petition by the CrimethInc Ex-Workers Collective, a U.S.-based decentralized collective of anarchist activists that opposes the existence of capitalism and Western government, to condemn the first Trump administration’s military withdrawal from northern Syria, thereby giving tacit approval to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to invade the Rojava region, which contains a left-wing Kurdish population. 6
As of December 2025, the last post made on CAFA’s blog was posted in November 2022. It was written by Sean Dolan, a self-proclaimed former fascist who left far-right activism. 2
However, in December 2022, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that Chicago Anti-Fascist Action revealed research that antisemitic podcaster Nick Fuentes had sold an apartment he owned in Berwyn, a suburb of Chicago, a few days after the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump. The purchaser of the property, Chicco Properties, was owned by Fuentes’s grandmother, and Fuentes was listed as the company’s manager. 3
On January 2023, CAFA was on a list of organizations that endorsed a petition by It’s Going Down, a far-left digital community center, declaring “Solidarity with the Movement to Stop Cop City and Defend Weelaunee Forest.” The two organizations are radical-left activist groups that oppose the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in the Weelaunee Forest outside Atlanta, Georgia, and have engaged in violent protests to achieve their aims. Other signatories included numerous chapters of the National Lawyers Guild, 350.org, Atlanta Antifascists, and the CrimethInc Ex-Workers Collective. 7 8