Posted on June 13, 2021

American Renaissance Conference is Huge Success

AR Staff, American Renaissance, July 1996

American Renaissance Conference 1996

The second American Renaissance conference has been a resounding success. Hysterical media reactions and occasional “civil rights” demonstrations were only a tonic to the 165 people who gathered from all around the country and even from as far away as Germany and Canada.

The conference proceeded without mishap or interruption in Louisville’s most elegant downtown hotel, The Seelbach. Despite tremendous pressure from liberals, the hotel management stood by its contract with AR, and made every possible effort to ensure a smooth and successful meeting.

After registration on Saturday afternoon, Jared Taylor, editor of AR, welcomed the conferees. He described the media storm that had built up over the past six weeks, and recounted some of the unsuccessful efforts to shut the meeting down. Mr. Taylor warned that there were sure to be demonstrators but expressed confidence in the Seelbach’s security measures. He then introduced George McDaniel, editor of the AR web page, who explained how effective the page has been in spreading the word about AR. The group then enjoyed a very convivial reception, where merry-making and fellowship continued well into the evening.

The first anti-conference demonstration took place during the reception. Some 35 or 40 people, mostly white, gathered on the sidewalk in front of the hotel to chant slogans, wave signs, and give speeches. The demonstrators had called out the local television stations, so several conference speakers joined them in front of the hotel to go on camera and add a note of sanity to the evening news broadcasts. The demonstrators were an excitable lot. One, catching sight of Jared Taylor, shouted into a bullhorn that “racists should be torn limb from limb.”

The conference began in earnest the next morning. The first speaker, Prof. Michael Levin of City College of New York, spoke about current fallacies regarding race. One of the most popular is the currently fashionable but groundless view that there is no such thing as race. Another is the silly notion that because heredity and environment both influence human behavior, it is impossible to separate the effects of one from the other.

Prof. Levin also addressed what is called the Flynn effect, or the view that the average IQs of all people in Western countries have been steadily rising over the past several decades, due to some unknown environmental effect. This phenomenon, if true, is often used to justify the expectation that environment could be used to raise the IQs of blacks to the level of whites. As Prof. Levin pointed out, even if the Flynn effect is real, the gap between black and white IQs has remained unchanged. This suggests that if anyone were to uncover the cause of the Flynn effect, whites would have to be deliberately deprived of its benefits if racial equalization were to be achieved.

Prof. Levin praised The Bell Curve but said that its authors had taken the unfortunate position that since the race/IQ gap has shown itself to be so difficult to close, it makes no difference whether it is caused by heredity or environment. He pointed out that it is vital that performance gaps be recognized as largely due to heredity, because any environmental explanation will be used by blacks to support demands for compensation. “Application of guilt to whites,” he concluded, “is the engine that keeps everything going.”

Prof. Levin was followed by Wayne Lutton, Associate Editor of The Social Contract, who spoke about the effects of large-scale third-world immigration. He noted that polling data show that increased awareness of immigration produces increased opposition to it, and that people whose own areas receive many immigrants are the most opposed. Many blacks, he explained, are moving back to the South, away from those parts of the country that are being transformed by immigrants. Because research consistently shows that large majorities of Americans oppose further immigration, Congress’ unwillingness to reduce immigration levels is one of the greatest failures of a presumably representative government.

Dr. Lutton also spoke forcefully about the local impact of third-world arrivals. Witchcraft of various kinds, along with its attendant barbarous customs, is now common in certain parts of the country. Likewise, in jurisdictions with large numbers of immigrants, courts are beginning to recognize “cultural defenses” to excuse actions that are crimes in the United States but may be common practice elsewhere. Noting that rarely has a Clinton appointee spoken so truthfully, he quoted INS commissioner Doris Meissner: “We are transforming ourselves.”

Likewise ominous is the trend toward international agreements to ensure “immigrant rights.” It is only white nations that are receiving immigrants in large numbers, and they are beginning to bind themselves under international law in ways that are a direct threat to sovereignty. Dr. Lutton warned of potential treaty agreements that could actually take away from Congress the power to regulate immigration and put it in the hands of international bureaucrats.

Dr. Lutton was followed by Fr. James Thornton, a priest under the jurisdiction of the True Orthodox Church of Greece. Speaking on “A Christian Perspective on the American Dilemma,” Fr. Thornton reminded the audience that Christianity has long been at the heart of European civilization and has inspired many of its most glorious cultural achievements. He denounced what he described as the central elements of modernism: godlessness, which leads to materialism; materialism, which makes money-making the highest objective; and the destruction of hierarchies and local particularisms because they are obstacles to efficient money-making. In his critique of modernism, he explained that in the 19th century Jakob Burckhardt had already spoken out against the “arrogant belief in the moral superiority of the present.”

Despite the current association of Christianity with liberalism and relentless egalitarianism, Fr. Thornton cited many historical examples to show that this is a departure from original Christian teaching. He explained that although men are equal before God, “traditional Christianity is clearly not rooted in a tradition of earthly egalitarianism.” He concluded with a stirring call for a return to the spiritual wellsprings of Western Civilization and for the reestablishment of a moral authority and social order based on faith.

After lunch, Jared Taylor expanded on ideas outlined in the June issue of AR. He noted that whites are not willing to live in areas that have non-white majorities, yet are pursuing policies that will soon give the entire United States a non-white majority. He pointed out that racial diversity is a terrible weakness, not a strength, and that it is unprecedented for a majority race or cultural group voluntarily to give up its own nation.

In seeking to uncover the reasons for this tragic capitulation, Mr. Taylor noted some of the characteristics that make Western Civilization unique: rule of law, democracy, free speech, respect for women’s rights, and even concern for the environment. They are all based on a deeply rooted conviction that all people — even generations not yet born — have rights that must be respected. Mr. Taylor went on to speculate that it is a perversion of this characteristic concern for others that has paralyzed whites in the face of explicitly racial demands issued by others.

In conclusion, he noted that some of America’s greatest men — Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, John Marshall, Abraham Lincoln, and many others — were convinced that a multi-racial society of the kind we are building could not succeed. He warned that we must reject the suicidal fad of multi-racialism and return to the wisdom of our forebears.

The next speaker was syndicated columnist, Samuel Francis, who was greeted with a sustained ovation. He began with an account of the vicious treatment by the establishment of people who dare to question current racial dogma. He described in detail the vilification, attacks on professional integrity, legal battles, and even physical intimidation that have followed Philippe Rushton’s and Michael Levin’s courageous battles against orthodoxy. He pointed out that the opposition never attempts to refute a dissenter’s views, but instead tries to muzzle him and destroy him professionally.

Dr. Francis noted that in the past, elites have tended to be conservative, because it was in their interests to preserve the social order that kept them in power. He suggested that today’s elites have a vested interest in “liberalism” and constant change, because social intervention and the enormous government and media apparatus that goes along with it are their primary power base. He concluded with a warning that unless those who believe in our race and civilization are willing to take risks — risks as great as those taken by civil rights workers in the 1960s and even by homosexual activists today — we cannot hope to advance our interests.

Gordon Baum of the Council of Conservative Citizens then gave a brief account of his organization’s activities. The C of CC is no doubt the most effective group working today for the interests of the majority. Mr. Baum was followed by Frank Borzellieri, who had just stood the city of New York on its ear by winning re-election to the school board on an explicitly Euro-centric ticket. His may have been the greatest margin of victory in the entire history of New York school board elections, proving that voters can withstand hysterical press denunciations and will, when given the chance, vote for Western Civilization. Mr. Borzellieri noted that if victory is possible in the very belly of the multicultural beast, it is possible anywhere.

The first evening event was a patriotic sing-along hosted by Sam G. Dickson of Atlanta. With piano accompaniment, and with vocal cords well lubricated with drink, conferees sang their way through such favorites as “The British Grenadiers,” “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” “The Orange Sash,” “Rule Britannia,” and “Land of Hope and Glory.” The most rousing renditions were of the Confederate favorites, “Dixie,” “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” and “Maryland, My Maryland.” The group also sang a number of ancient European national anthems, including “God Save Kaiser Francis” and “God Save the Tsar,” neither of which, Mr. Dickson observed, had probably ever before been sung in Louisville. Cheered and refreshed, the group proceeded to an excellent banquet dinner.

The after-dinner speaker was Philippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario, who began his talk with a display of some of the editorial cartoons the Canadian press has published in attempts to lampoon his views. In retrospect, and to a sympathetic audience, these mean-spirited attacks seemed quite hilarious. Prof. Rushton noted that when The Bell Curve was published, he benefited from Canadian nationalism, in that even when columnists deplored genetic explanations for the race gap in IQ, they could not help but be proud that a Canadian had been well ahead of Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein on this question.

Prof. Rushton then went on to give a clear, comprehensive, and convincing survey of racial differences. He explained that the races differ not only in intelligence, but in physiology, behavior, and even personality, and that these differences are found consistently all around the world. He said that at one time he assumed the IQ question would be what finally opened the subject of racial differences to general discussion, but that he has now changed his mind. AIDS is spreading so rapidly among blacks, and the expense of treatment is so high that the terrible cost of public health for blacks will be the issue that finally makes race impossible to ignore.

Including the question-and-answer period, Prof. Rushton spoke for nearly two hours, holding his audience spellbound and showing complete mastery of his field.

The first speaker on Monday morning was the only disappointment. In order to fill a last-minute gap in the program, Jared Taylor had asked a prominent local liberal to listen to the first day’s speakers and then report on where he thought they were mistaken. John Yarmuth, editor of the Louisville Eccentric Observer, described the conferees and speakers as frustrated people incapable of accepting change. He said that it was diversity that has made the United States a great nation, and that despite accusations of hypocrisy from some of the speakers, many liberals lead racially integrated social lives.

He dismissed IQ testing as an arbitrary, irrelevant measure. “He who makes the rules, rules,” he explained, saying that one could set up an equally arbitrary standard of superiority and inferiority by using golf handicaps. People with low handicaps usually live in nice neighborhoods, have intact families, and high incomes; why not argue that all of this is a result of their superior golf game? In a speech that was occasionally insulting, he did make one excellent point: That just as racialists object when people claim they are motivated by hate, so should they refrain from mischaracterizing the motives of liberals, who often hold their views sincerely.

Mr. Yarmuth was followed by Michael Hart, who spoke about racial partition of the United States. He began by pointing out the myriad ways in which the races are incompatible. Prof. Hart proposed a three-way partition, with a black-separatist nation, a white-separatist nation, and a multi-racial, integrated nation. He argued that it would be best to provide for a multi-racial nation because whites and blacks who believe in integration would not want to live with separatists. He said that the size of each separatist nation would be determined by the number of people who committed themselves to living in them. The new nations would be located so as to oblige as few people as possible to move. People who did move would have several years to do so, and government would compensate them for the property they left behind.

Prof. Hart noted that sufficient sentiment for partition is not likely to develop for several more decades, and that for the present his plan might appear fanciful. He warned, however, that peaceful, voluntary separation is the only certain way to avoid the possibility of uncontrolled, violent separation.

The final speaker on the program was Sam G. Dickson. He heaped scorn on liberals, who never seem to notice that their social experiments always fail. He noted the blindness of those who believe that in all of Creation only the human brain is somehow exempt from the laws of genetics. He echoed Michael Levin’s view that guilt for imaginary sins is what demoralizes so many whites. He did, however, point out that whites do have one thing for which they should feel guilty — the invention of liberalism!

Mr. Dickson said that America has three possible futures. The first, which is only a pipe dream, would be a return to the innocent 1950s. The two more realistic possibilities are continued dysgenic decline into ever-greater degeneracy or ascent into a shining world of genetic and cultural progress. “The people who can set our nation on the right course are sitting in this room today,” he said, adding that the fate of our struggle lies in our hands and in our hands alone. Mr. Dickson’s eloquence was a fitting conclusion to an inspiring program.

The final demonstration against AR took place just as the conference was breaking up. A group of about the same number as before performed its evolutions in front of the hotel, as conferees looked on in amusement. The contrast between the high demeanor of the AR group and the scruffy vulgarity of the demonstrators could not have been greater.

The conferees then set off for their homes, inspired by the program, cheered by the camaraderie, and resolved to work harder than ever for a cause they know to be as crucially important as it is just and true.