The Thirty Extremist Groups Still Active in Colorado

Extremism is alive and well in Colorado, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Thirty extremist organizations were active throughout Colorado in 2023 — including thirteen hate groups and seventeen anti-government groups, the SPLC reveals in its most recent annual national report.

Ten of the groups operated statewide, according to the report. Twenty others were located in sixteen different cities and counties in Colorado. The only municipalities that housed multiple active extremist organizations were Colorado Springs, with four, and Johnstown, with two.

Nationwide, there were 1,430 active extremist organizations in 2023, according to the SPLC: 595 hate groups and 835 anti-government groups. Extremist organizations were present in all fifty states, though California had the most, at 117, and Mississippi had the least, at four. The state with the most groups per capita was Wyoming.

The SPLC is a nonprofit civil rights organization that has published a national census of hate groups in the United States each year since 1990. It uses official statements/principles, leadership comments and activities of organizations to identify them as hate groups (defined as attacking or maligning an entire class of people typically for immutable characteristics) or anti-government groups (which believe the federal government is tyrannical and traffic in conspiracy theories about an illegitimate government of leftist elites).

The presence of hate groups grew dramatically in Colorado throughout the 2000s, according to the census data. The groups were at their lowest with six in 2002 but reached a high of 22 in 2018 and 2019. The number of active hate groups in the state has dwindled since that peak, falling to seventeen in 2020, eighteen in 2021, fourteen in 2022 and thirteen in 2023.

The SPLC began including anti-government groups in its census in 2022. That year, there were seventeen operating in Colorado, the same total as the state's most recent count.

Here's a rundown of the thirty extremist organizations still present in Colorado, according to the SPLC, and how that group categorizes each one:

Hate Groups

Anti-Immigrant: "Anti-immigrant hate groups are the most extreme of the hundreds of nativist and vigilante groups that have proliferated since the late 1990s, when anti-immigrant xenophobia began to rise to levels not seen in the U.S. since the 1920s."

• Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform — Lakewood

Anti-LGBTQ: "The opposition to LGBTQ rights or support of homophobia, heterosexism and/or cisnormativity often expressed through demonizing rhetoric and grounded in harmful pseudoscience that portrays LGBTQ people as threats to children, society and often public health."

• Family Research Institute — Colorado Springs
• Generations — Elizabeth
• Mass Resistance — statewide
• The Pray in Jesus Name Project — Colorado Springs

Christian Identity: "Christian Identity is an antisemitic, racist theology that rose to a position of commanding influence on the racist right in the 1980s. 'Christian' in name only, it asserts that white people, not Jewish people, are the true Israelites favored by God in the Bible."

• Scriptures for America Worldwide Ministries — Laporte

Hate General: "Groups in this category peddle a combination of well-known hate and conspiracy theories, in addition to unique bigotries that are not easily categorized. Several of the groups seek to profit off their bigotry by selling hate materials from several different sectors of the white supremacist movement."

• Northern Kingdom Prophets — Pueblo
• Proud Boys — statewide

Neo-Nazi: "Neo-Nazi groups share a hatred for Jews and a love for Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. While they also hate nonwhite people, LGBTQ people and even sometimes Christians, they perceive 'the Jew' as their cardinal enemy."

• National Socialist Resistance Front — statewide

Neo-Völkisch: "Born out of an atavistic defiance of modernity and rationalism, present-day neo-Völkisch, or Folkish, adherents and groups are organized around ethnocentricity and archaic notions of gender."

• Asatru Folk Assembly — statewide

White Nationalist: "White nationalist groups espouse white supremacist or white separatist ideologies, often focusing on the alleged inferiority of people of color. They frequently claim that white people are unfairly persecuted by society and even the victims of a racial genocide. Their primary goal is to create a white ethnostate."

• Front Range Active Club/Rocky Mountain Active Club — statewide
• National Justice Party — statewide
• Patriot Front — statewide

Anti-Government Groups

Anti-Government General: "Anti-government groups are part of the anti-democratic hard-right movement. They believe the federal government is tyrannical, and they traffic in conspiracy theories about an illegitimate government of leftist elites seeking a 'New World Order.'"

• Colorado Eagle Forum — Brighton
• Colorado Parents Involved in Education — statewide
• Faith Education Commerce (FEC United) — Colorado Springs
• Freedom First Society — Colorado Springs
• Moms for Liberty — chapters in Boulder, Garfield, Mesa and Weld counties
• We Are Change — chapters in Denver and Walsenburg

Conspiracy Propagandists: "Conspiracy propagandist groups aim to delegitimize government institutions or government officials by stoking fears concerning door-to-door gun confiscations, martial law, supposed takeover of the U.S. by the 'New World Order' and anxieties around the Federal Emergency Management Agency."

• American Freedom Network — Johnstown
• United Network News — Durango

Militia Movement: "Militia groups are characterized by their obsession with field training exercises, guns, uniforms typically resembling those worn in the armed forces and a warped interpretation of the Second Amendment. Anti-government militia groups engage in firearm training and maintain internal hierarchical command structures."

• III% United Patriots — Johnstown

Sovereign Citizens Movement: "Sovereign citizens believe they are not under the jurisdiction of the federal government and consider themselves exempt from U.S. law. They use a variety of conspiracy theories and falsehoods to justify their beliefs and their activities, some of which are illegal or violent."

• Colorado State Assembly — statewide
• Team Law — Grand Junction
• The American States Assembly — statewide
• The Jefferson County Assembly — Jefferson County

By the way, the Colorado State Assembly is not to be confused with the Colorado General Assembly, which will convene for its next session on January 8 at the State Capitol.