The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists 784 active hate groups in America. Groups that practice verbal attacks in speeches or publications that promote violence, or hold ideologies that attack or malign an entire set of people fall under this category.
While organized hatred is not a practice that is widespread, the number of hate groups tends to be more concentrated in some states than others.
Out of the 784 groups, 10 states had the largest number of hate groups, according to an analysis by 24/7 Wall St. More hate groups are operating in Mississippi (22) relative to its population than any other state. Tennessee (29), Louisiana (15), Virginia (27), Kentucky (16), Alabama (18), South Carolina (19), New Jersey (40), Idaho (10) and Arkansas (20) also topped to list.
White nationalist or white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates are the most common hate groups in the U.S.
The report also found that African Americans are by far the most victimized group of people by hate group activity and other less extreme forms of discrimination in the country.
“Segregation contributes to distrust between the races,” SPLC Senior Fellow Mark Potok said.
Dislike, intolerance, and hatred appear to decrease when people live alongside each other. These attitudes are more likely to flourish when people are separated.
The negative affects of segregation don’t stop there. In addition to destroying race relations in a community, segregation generates poor economic and social outcomes for Blacks. In the last 60 years, Blacks were intentionally excluded from affordable housing options across the nation. Blacks in America earn about 60% of what Whites do. Accumulated wealth among typical African American households is just 6 percent of the typical White household.
Of the 10 states with the highest concentration of hate groups, a higher share of eight of the states’ populations identified as Black than the national proportion of 12.6%.
The hate groups, primarily housed in the South, contribute to the region’s deep-rooted legacy of racial hatred.
According to Potok, there’s a belief among many Southerners that “the [Civil] war wasn’t even over slavery, that the South has been pilloried, defeated militarily, and treated terribly ever since.”
Many people who feel that way can be more likely to form a hate-based ideology and actually join hate groups, Potok explained.
Researchers determined the states with the most hate groups by reviewing the number of active hate groups in each state. They then ranked the states based on the number of active hate groups per 1 million state residents.
