Redneck Revolt is a left-wing anti-capitalist activist and “community defense” organization operating throughout the United States. It promotes gun ownership and training among socialists, anarchists, and others on the far left.

Describing itself as “anti-racist” and “anti-fascist,” it also attempts to spread left-wing ideology by appealing (mainly through its support of the Second Amendment) to poor, rural segments of the white working class who traditionally support conservatives.

Background

Redneck Revolt claims to have formed in 2016 out of the original John Brown Gun Club, a pro-firearm left-wing activist group that was itself derived from Kansas Mutual Aid Collective. ¹  According to a different source, Redneck Revolt may have began as early as 2009. ²

Redneck Revolt desires to reclaim the term “redneck” for the left, claiming it initially referred to farmers and then later armed insurrectionaries in the organized labor movement of West Virginia’s coal mines. It criticizes “upper class urban liberals” for using the term to refer to lower classes with a “demeaning connotation.” ³

Operating throughout the United States, Redneck Revolt is a left-wing anti-capitalist activist and “community defense” organization. It promotes gun ownership and training among socialists, anarchists, and others on the far left. Describing itself as “anti-racist” and “anti-fascist,” it also attempts to spread left-wing ideology by appealing (mainly through its support of the Second Amendment) to poor, rural segments of the white working class who traditionally vote for conservatives. ⁴

Redneck Revolt’s website features quotes from Black Panther Fred Hampton, radical socialist and black nationalist Stokely Carmichael, and Spanish anarcho-syndicalist militant Buenaventura Durruti. ⁵

Activities

Redneck Revolt is part of a national network of chapters, which includes the various branches of the John Brown Gun Club. ⁶ Revolt vets all of its branches and requires that its branches follow its principles on race, socialism, the patriarchy, guns, the “right of militant resistance,” and “the need for revolution.” ^{7 8}

Redneck Revolt hosts the Redneck Revolt Podcast, which covers news topics, reports on its local chapters, and shares “gun tips.” ⁹ Revolt also publishes political analyses on its website regarding topics such as gun control, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the 2017 white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. ¹⁰

Funding

Redneck Revolt encourages supporters to donate money to its “John Brown Solidarity Fund,” a fund that claims to put 100 percent of proceeds toward “support[ing] anti-fascist community defense groups nationwide.” It claims the fund creates “armed community defense programs” in every community in the United States to combat “the upsurge in reactionary and racist violence.” Arguing that gun control is “reactionary” and encouraging left-wingers to arm themselves, Redneck Revolt warns “we are approaching truly dangerous times,” asking its activists, “will we be ready?” ^{11 12}

Another fund operated by the group, the Redneck Revolt War Chest, solicits donations for local Redneck Revolt chapters as well as the John Brown Gun Club’s various branches across the United States. Redneck Revolt also provides supporters with the option to make monthly recurring donations to support both itself and the John Brown Gun Club. ¹³

Leadership

Dave Strano, one of Redneck Revolt’s founding members, decided to begin organizing within the white working class when he identified what he thought was a contradiction between the economic policies support by the right-of-center Tea Party movement and the relative poverty of its supporters. ¹⁴

Dwayne Dixon, an academic who as of 2019 was an instructor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), was reportedly a member of Silver Valley Redneck Revolt. He has been arrested twice for militant activism, though both charges were dropped. ¹⁵ Following the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, Dixon joined three historians on a panel to discuss community defense against “racist terror when the state is indifferent or hostile.” The event was hosted at the Harvard Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. ¹⁶

1. “White Workers Resisting Capitalism and White Supremacy: An Interview With Redneck Revolt.” RedneckRevolt.org; originally appeared in The Hampton Institute and It’s Going Down. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/single-post/2016/07/28/WHITE-WORKERS-RESISTING-CAPITALISM-AND-WHITE-SUPREMACY-AN-INTERVIEW-WITH-REDNECK-REVOLT.
2. Watt, Cecilia Saixue. “Redneck Revolt: the armed leftwing group that wants to stamp out fascism.” The Guardian, July 11, 2017. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/11/redneck-revolt-guns-anti-racism-fascism-far-left.
3. “Home.” Redneckrevolt.org. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/.
4. “Home.” Redneckrevolt.org. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/.
5. “Home.” Redneckrevolt.org. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/.
6. “Support.” Redneckrevolt.org. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/support.
7. “About.” Redneckrevolt.org. Accessed November 27, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/about.
8. “Principles.” Redneckrevolt.org. Accessed November 27, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/principles.
9. “Podcast.” Redneckrevolt.org. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/podcast.
10. “Analysis.” Redneckrevolt.org. Accessed November 27, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/analysis.
11. “Home.” Redneckrevolt.org. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/.
12. “Support.” Redneckrevolt.org. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/support.
13. “Support.” Redneckrevolt.org. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/support.
14. Watt, Cecilia Saixue. “Redneck Revolt: the armed leftwing group that wants to stamp out fascism.” The Guardian, July 11, 2017. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/11/redneck-revolt-guns-anti-racism-fascism-far-left.
15. Leef, George. “UNC’s Dwayne Dixon—Teacher Trouble.” National Review, July 29, 2019. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/unc-keeps-an-antifa-type-on-its-faculty/.
16. “You Don’t Stand By and Let People Get Hurt.” Redneckrevolt.org. Accessed November 25, 2022. https://www.redneckrevolt.org/single-post/you-dont-stand-by-and-let-people-get-hurt.