Tom Metzger, a notorious white supremacist and anti-Semite who cultivated a generation of neo-Nazi skinheads as the founder and leader of the White Aryan Resistance, died on Nov. 4 in Hemet, Calif. Jose Arballo Jr., a spokesman for the Department of Public Health in Riverside County, Calif., said on Thursday that Mr. Metzger died at a skilled nursing center. The cause was Parkinson’s disease, Mr. Arballo said. Though Mr. Metzger had receded from public view in recent years, he was widely considered to be one of the most influential leaders in the white supremacist movement, responsible for organizing young neo-Nazi skinheads in the mid-1980s and ’90s and inciting them to violence. He pioneered the use of television and radio to spread his racist and anti-Semitic views, including through his own public-access cable television show and appearances by him and his followers on talk shows hosted by Oprah Winfrey, Phil Donahue and Geraldo Rivera.

Source: New York Times November 13, 2020 00:22 UTC