BURNS, Tenn. (WTVF) — For years, the guest list for an annual white nationalist gathering at Tennessee’s Montgomery Bell State Park has been a closely guarded secret.
This year, NewsChannel 5 Investigates set up surveillance at the security checkpoint for the American Renaissance Conference, discovering that the attendees include characters who have celebrated heinous acts of violence by neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists.
In one case, one of the attendees posted about how he could one day see himself following in the footsteps of a man who killed innocent Jews he viewed as the enemy.
That discovery stands in stark contrast to efforts by American Renaissance leaders to portray the yearly event as an intellectual meeting of the minds by white Americans. AmRen, as it is known, has been meeting at the park, located about 30 minutes west of Nashville, since 2012.
“There are 200 or 300 people in that building over there that believe only they belong in this country,” said a protestor who identified herself as Johanna, pointing to the park’s lodge. She did not want to provide her last name, she said, out of fear of retaliation.
"This group kind of represents the worst of the worst, and I wanted to at least be out here to say that that's not the America that I grew up with, that's not the America that I believe in," Johanna said.
A protest leader, who identified herself as Rory, shared similar concerns.
"We want our message of tolerance and acceptance to stand in stark contrast to what they're advocating for in there,” Rory explained.
Over the years, the American Renaissance Conference has attracted notorious speakers such as neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, white nationalist Nick Fuentes and far-right European figures whose views are so extreme that they must appear by video because they are barred from entering the US.
Yet, the group has tried to shield the identities of its attendees from the public.
So, when AmRen returned to Montgomery Bell State Park beginning on Friday, Nov. 14, NewsChannel 5 Investigates staked out the security checkpoint that was set up to keep protesters away from the park lodge where the conference meets. We chose a public spot in a public park where any member of the public could have observed what we saw.
Some attendees seemed desperate to hide their identities from NewsChannel 5’s cameras, with one woman using both hands to cover her face as she spoke with a ranger at the checkpoint.
Who did we see?
During about four hours of observation, NewsChannel 5 Investigates spotted the famously camera-shy Greg Johnson, a white nationalist who serves as editor-in-chief of the far-right Counter-Currents website, and his long-time associate David Zsutty.
Both men are from California.
Johnson, who has rarely been photographed, could be seen uttering what appeared to be an expletive when he spotted NewsChannel 5’s cameras. AmRen later posted a photo of him from inside the conference.
NewsChannel 5 discovered that Johnson, author of the book The White Nationalist Manifesto, published a column celebrating a mass murder committed by neo-Nazi Anders Breivik in 2011. Breivik first killed eight people with a van bomb, followed by the massacre of 69 people at a Norwegian youth camp.
In his column published in 2012, Johnson admitted that he initially feared that Breivik’s actions “would harm not just Norwegian ethno-nationalism but white nationalism around the world.”
But Johnson came to a “strange new respect” for Breivik because, as the writer saw it, Breivik was engaged in “resistance to genocide” caused by Norway’s liberal immigration policies.
Johnson wrote that it would have been better if Breivik “had killed the actual leadership of Norway’s Labor Party, or the leaders of the Norwegian press—as opposed to people as young as 14.”
Breivik, he wrote, simply "chose the wrong targets" for his killing spree.
“He is an awakened white man, and those are all too rare,” Johnson continued.
Similarly, David Zsutty, executive director of the anti-immigration Homeland Institute, has defended the neo-Nazi who drove into a crowd of protestors in Charlottesville in 2017, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
The killer, James Alex Fields, was convicted of first-degree murder.
Yet, Zsutty tweeted, "James Fields is a hero who did nothing wrong."
In another post, Zsutty wrote: "Charlottesville made me realize that many liberals aren't fully human along with the true extent of jewish media control."
A former activist in the neo-Nazi Identity Evropa, Zsutty has also defended those who assaulted Capitol police on January 6, 2021.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates texted and emailed both Johnson and Zsutty seeking comment, as well as texting AmRen leaders in an attempt to get messages to them.
Neither responded.
Using facial recognition software, NewsChannel 5 was able to uncover other photos identifying another attendee as Atlanta resident Jared Huggins, who was also once part of Identity Europa.
Huggins was also in Charlottesville in 2017, according to hate researchers who uncovered a Facebook post under a different last name where he called the weekend "f—king metal."
There was also a post on X, formerly Twitter, linked to Huggins where he celebrated the Dodge Challenger used in the murder.
Huggins did not respond to NewsChannel 5’s inquiries.
We also captured images of a young man driving an SUV with plates from Johnson County—the northeastern-most county in Tennessee—and wearing a cap for the National Alliance.
National Alliance is a group originally founded by neo-Nazi William Pierce. His book, The Turner Diaries, helped inspire Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
Using the same facial recognition software, we found a match to a young California man named Dillon Gaidano. On the far-right messaging platform, we found posts from a National Alliance activist who identifies himself as “Dillon,” references his attendance at AmRen and includes photos of the same vehicle that we spotted going through the security checkpoint.
The Telegram account references a move from California to Tennessee, as well as noting his participation in the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps. NewsChannel 5 then uncovered video posted by the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps of the same young man, identifying him as Dillon Gaidano.
That person’s online trail shows the young man has expressed his admiration for violent white supremacists Robert Jay Mathews and Frazier Glenn Miller.
In a Telegram post, he wrote, "For me at least, if our goals aren't met in my lifetime, I will pull a page out of Master Sergeant Frazier Glenn Miller's playbook."
Miller shot and killed three members of a Kansas Jewish community in 2014 because, according to authorities, he wanted to kill some Jews before he died.
A Podcaster's Perspective
Perhaps the best clue about what was happening inside came from another man spotted by NewsChannel 5 Investigates. Using the facial recognition software, we identified him as Emil Cosman, a Romanian-born, pro-Russian podcaster from Michigan who was invited to the conference to observe.
In a podcast review he later posted, Cosman described the atmosphere inside the conference as one where it was antisemitism that really invigorated the crowd.
"Whenever the word ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewish’ came into someone’s, [they] used [it] in their speech, there were a lot of cheerings over there—I’m talking about bad connotations," Cosman recounted. “The Jews are in control—these kinds of things. A lot of people cheered, like, oh yeah, like, good job, man, telling us the truth."
The podcaster said National Alliance had a table where it was selling its materials, but American Renaissance insisted that The Turner Diaries be kept out of public view.
"You know what the reason was?” Cosman continued. “These guys are neo-Nazis. These are Nazis. That was the answer. They are Nazis. That's why we don't do it. It's a Nazi book."
That was a far different story from when NewsChannel 5 Investigates first met American Renaissance founder Jared Taylor, who claimed to know nothing about neo-Nazis at his event.
“I don't even know a neo-Nazi," Taylor insisted during an interview at the 2024 gathering.
But inside the conference this year, Cosman said, Jared Taylor privately insisted the group's Turner Diaries was a real problem because it “promotes violence and terrorism.”
Who else did we see?
NewsChannel 5’s cameras also spotted other attendees who, while controversial, have not been as vocal about supporting violence.
Among them was Thomas Rousseau, leader of the Patriot Front, the white nationalist group known for its flash mob protests as well as its training of young men for battle. They want an America that is for whites only.
We also saw Eric Orwoll, the Arkansas man who heads Return to the Land, the group that wants to build a whites-only community in Tennessee.
Photos posted on Telegram show Rousseau and a group of his Patriot Front followers recently showed up at Orwoll's compound in Arkansas to help with building projects there, despite what seemed like Orwoll’s efforts to distance himself from the group a few weeks back.
Orwoll stopped at the checkpoint for a brief conversation.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates noted, “When we did the Zoom interview, you expressed some ambivalence, but then they came to your place and did some work."
"No, I'm all for helping them and them helping us,” Orwoll answered. “I do have some personal ideological disagreements, but they are relatively minor."
We also spotted an attendee whose image matched to a Pennsylvania man, Dmitri Loutsik, who heads a publishing house called Antelope Hill. The man at the security checkpoint could be seen showing a park ranger his Pennsylvania driver’s license.
Antelope Hill reprints Nazi and other far-right books.
Loutsik did not respond to NewsChannel 5’s request for comment.
There was also a Lutheran pastor from southeast Alabama.
Chad Ingle, who leads the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Ozark, recently made news when reports revealed that his church was hosting monthly meetings of a neo-Confederate group known as the Southern Cultural Center (SCC).
According to the SCC website, the group advocates for “a free and independent Southern republic.”
The Southern Cultural Center posted photos of its attendees at the 2024 American Renaissance Conference, which included a photo of the man we had seen and identified him as “Chad.”
Ingle did not respond to NewsChannel 5’s request for comment.
American Renaissance leaders were not happy with NewsChannel 5’s presence, with longtime Klan and white supremacist lawyer Sam Dickson accusing us of cooperating with domestic terrorists.
"The reason that we have reason to be concerned is we have had lots of trouble with a group called Antifa,” Dickson said. “They have tried to prevent us from having our meetings.”
NewsChannel 5 Investigates assured him that we were not part of Antifa.
Still, the group suggested in a blog post that it plans to return to Montgomery Bell State Park again and again.
"Opponents seem to have given up trying to cancel the conference," the post said. "American Renaissance is now an institution at our regular location, and this stability means we can move beyond theory into practice."
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Do you have information that would help me with my investigation? Send me your tips: phil.williams@newschannel5.com
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