Following race riots in St. Petersburg, Florida, in the fall of 1996, a coalition of Florida Klans and the black separatist group PAIN staged two joint demonstrations, and confused residents of a predominantly black neighborhood could observe white Identity Christian racialists in Klan robes embracing black racialist spokespersons in traditional African outfits. Despite the fact that the Nation of Islam, the most vociferous black nationalist organization in the United States, identifies the white man as the devil, white racists all over the country sing the praises of its present leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan. Furthermore, the Nation seems perfectly willing to invite the devil to participate in its meetings and roundtable discussions. A series of overt and covert contacts link together America's white and black racialist organizations. This fascinating phenomena is the main focus for the present 5e part of this web exclusive investigation today Nov.1.

A case that might indicate support for the "alliance theory" is found in the cooperation between a cluster of Florida Klans and two groups of black separatists, the Pan-African Internationalist Movement (PAIN), led by Chief Osiris Akkebala and the Atlanta-based Lost-Found Nation of Islam, headed by Silis X Muhammad. Far from being a unique occurrence, the mutual understanding that was demonstrated is rooted in the meeting between two dedicated champions of racial separation, Chief Osiris Akkebala and John Baumgardner.

Chief Osiris Akkebala, born Jack Mitchell in 1937 in Orlando, Florida, is the founder of black religious nationalist PAIN. A former Baptist minister, Chief Osiris gravitated toward black separatism and the teachings of Marcus Garvey after years of increasingly radical activism, first in the NAACP and then in CORE.

Attracted by pre-Christian African religions, he left the church during the late 1960s and set out on a spiritual quest that, after a brief flirtation with black Islam, led him to "reconnect" with "the spiritual knowledge of our ancestors." In line with the earlier outlined basic myth of black religious nationalism, PAIN teaches that the primordial Man-God established the first civilization on the face of the earth at Chemi, today known as Egypt.

Through the channels of direct communication with the Divine and the ancestral pool of stored knowledge, Chief Osiris is able to take history "beyond where Western scholars start," to the Beginning of Time. Like in the NOI creed, a self-created primordial Being takes the form of man and embarks on a journey of which we now are a part. Originally populating another planet, the Man-God descended on what was then a virgin earth. The grandiose civilization he established surpassed by far any evolutionary stage the pale earthly races later were able to achieve, as is demonstrated by the fact that pyramidal architecture still contains so many unsolved riddles. Due to a gradual decline and slack morals, a separation between man and God was allowed to occur, and blacks fell into a state of collective cultural amnesia. Invaded by hordes of "evil spirits" in pale carnal hues, Africa was colonized and a significant number of blacks were reduced to subhuman chattel slavery in an alien land. To rebuild primordial Man, to resurrect divine consciousness, the Africans in America must first perform a mental liberation and cast aside all thoughts with white origins. Black liberation is primarily a spiritual struggle, and having renounced all non-original beliefs, one is ready to "click into the genetic bank of our ancestors." Readopting the ancient gods of Chemi set the stage for a physical repatriation. As in Jewish religious nationalism, a direct connection is said to exist between the Holy Land and the quest for re-ascending into divinity. A mental liberation will automatically produce a "re-established [Pan-] African nation," inhabited by a superior race able to master the destiny of mankind.

John Baumgardner, born in Georgia in 1954, is not the stereotypical Klansman. A former counterculture hippie, with a past membership in Students for a Democratic Society who still keeps Che Guevara on the wall and favors reggae music, he combines full-time activism with home schooling his two children. Baumgardner joined the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan in 1984 and as Grand Dragon was instrumental in its increased Florida visibility. He was then promoted to Imperial Klaliff and shouldered the responsibility as editor of the Klansman, the Empire's national publication. Following the demise of the Invisible Empire, the Florida klaverns broke up in more than twenty independent Klan organizations, a number including klaverns from the remnants of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Baumgardner today heads the underground Florida Black Knights and is chief architect of the Inter-Klan Kartel, a networking of most of the existing Klans in the state. A staunch Identity Christian.

Baumgardner agreed to be called Identity Christian "for the purpose of classification" but thinks of himself as a "Christian." Theologically, Baumgardner is influenced mainly by Pastor Pete Peters and James Wickstrorn. Other sources are Pastor Richard G. Butler and the first generation Identity preachers, chiefly Bertrand Comparet and Wesley Swift.

 Baumgardner retains in part the class focus of his leftist past and has a working relationship with Metzger. Baumgardner has "constantly preached revolution" to a "traditionally reactionary Klan" and is pleased by the increasing militant radicalism of a present-day Klandorn finally about to realize that "the government is the enemy."

Emphasizing that the struggle mainly is "spiritual," Baumgardner deems change through conventional electoral politics utterly unrealistic. Reftising to acknowledge the system by voting "is the first revolutionary step." Fundamental change at the brink of disaster requires multiple means of resistance, including armed resistance. "We need people to be preparing for guerrilla war, we need terrorists, we need that!" he exclaimed. "Because a system that breeds violence, practices violence, only understands violence!" Baumgardner believes that we are entering the turbulent "Messianic Age ... .. and we are not going to be pulled off into the sky and saved from a world of destruction." God will use his Chosen as a military strike force to accomplish "apocalyptic change on this planet, the dawn of God's government."

In 1987 a civil rights march though all-white Forsyth County in Georgia had been attacked by the community in a major racial clash that was played up in the media for months. Baumgardner, who of course defends the integrity of that monoracial community, then heard that (almost) all-black Etonville in central Florida was to celebrate its centennial and decided to bring the Klan there to express its support. Four hundred policemen surrounded the two robed Klansmen who stood for the whole parade and had dialogue with the people who came up to them. In Etonville, Chief Osiris had his own radio talk show and invited Baumgardner to appear. They got "into some very deep conversation about race and the system"  learned that they were both racial separatists, and have "been friends ever since."

Their mutual friendship has since intensified and they now talk with each other several times a week. In March 1992, they agreed it was time to go public "to show that such a dynamic relationship can exist." Some 50 robed Klansmen and more than 20 PAIN members met at the old slave market in St. Augustine, Florida, for a demonstration that received quite extensive media coverage and caused controversy in both Klandom as well as in the black separatist world. Since then, they have engaged in several other joint actions. In St. Petersburg in 1996, PAIN, the Black Knights and parts of the Klan Kartel showed up in the black quarter "to offer a solution to their problems. Which is, of course, racial separation, repatriation and the payment of reparations.”

But how do people react to robed Klansmen and black separatists in African outfits standing together for a joint cause? Both Chief Osiris and John Baumgardner chuckle at the question, relating anecdotal glimpses before getting serious. Past Klan activities like lynching, castration and nightly terror have planted a negative image of the Klan in the mind of black folks, Osiris admits. But what they don't understand is that this is a very different breed of Klansmen. The Klan of the 1920s and 1960s was part of the southern power structure, the unofficial arm of white justice. Today, there are no powerful people left in a Klan as revolutionary and anti-system as their fellow black separatists.

Baumgardner acknowledges that "traditionally, the Klan has been pretty ignorant in its public appearances," but like Osiris he emphasizes the differences between Klans of different eras. He does, however, admit that this transracial linkage has met with opposition from "the reactionary remnants" within the Klan. Initially, resentment was greater and Baumgardner named his group the Black Knights partly because they "were the black sheep of the Klan." Baumgardner points to the historical connections between the Klan and Garvey, and proves his points by the successful propaganda of the deed. Baumgardner's strategy has gradually won over most white separatists in the Kartel. Though still getting bewildered reactions from the public, Baumgardner underlines that "all of us separatists get along fine. It's the rest of these civilians who have a problem. We're beyond hate. We figured it out, you know. Be honest enough to abide by your feelings and don't seek to assimilate. We don't have a problem with each other. We get along fine.”

The progressive friendship between Baumgardner and Chief Osiris led to further developments, expanding the contacts between black and white racialists. Baumgardner invited David Duke to meet with Chief Osiris in the late 1980s. Their coming together resulted in PAIN's endorsement of David Duke's 1988 presidential campaign on the Populist Party ticket, and Osiris accompanied Duke to Washington, D.C., to assist him in a lawsuit to get him on the ballot in several states.

Chief Osiris also backed the British National Front in its unsuccessful 1989 campaign in London, Through Osiris, Baumgardner was introduced to Silis X Muhammad, Saleem Muhammad and Ida Hakim of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam (LFNOI). Though founded by Silis X half a year earlier than Farrakhan established his Nation, the LFNOI never really caught comparable attention in black America. The LFNOI has a much smaller membership, distributed among some 25-30 mosques over the country. Obsessed with being dwarfed by the Nation, the LFNOI long directed most of its energy to combating Farrakhan as "the second beast of the revelations" in a development that stopped short of an internal black Islamic civil war.

For a more extensive description of LFNOI, its theology, politics and relations with NOI and the outer society, see Mattias Gardell, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad, p. 215-25

Following a failed truce effort, Farrakhan is today seen as the Anti-Christ. In the 1990s the LFNOI has tried to grow by concentrating on the issue of reparations, filing complaints with the United Nations and organizing coalitions to advance the issue. See: Baumgardner, John, 1996, "A Historic Meeting"; "A Case for Reparations," InterKlan Report (February 1995); "A Letter From Ku Klux Klan," Muhammad Speaks, March, 1995.

In support of reparations for the purpose of repatriation, Baumgardner has published articles in Klan and Muslim press,  which marked a closer working relationship with Ida Hakim. The latter is a white woman, who is married to "a God," i.e., a black man, and associated with a Lost-Found Nation of Islam she can never become a member of due to her race.

The blackosophy of LFNOI is akin to the NOI's, but where Farrakhan's teachings makes divinity a remote possibility but attainable (if at all) only after years of spiritual growth and dedication, the LFNO1 declares a fait accompli for its members. A black Muslim male is thus God, and Silis is the Most High (Earthly) God, the redeeming Savi or of the black race.

In 1991, inspired by a suggestion of Silis Muhammad, Ida Hakim founded Caucasians United for Reparations and Emancipation (CURE) as a white lobby in support for reparations, which now embraces the Ku Klux Klan and any other white organization or individual that might support the cause.

Both Hakim and Baumgardner are convinced that slavery was a decisive mistake and believe that only black repatriation will save America from an impending race war that will make the ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia a minor incident. Together, they are now researching which families benefited from the slave trade, where that money went, and who the heirs of the old slavocracy are, for the dual purpose of writing a book and filing suits for reparations.

The expanding networking further includes freelance black agitator Khallid Abdul Muhammad, formerly of Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, and negotiations are presently held with pan-African socialist Black Uhuru.

Through Baumgardner, Chief Osiris has been introduced to Tom Metzger, who although willing to meet with PAIN seems doubtful that anything more than talk will come of it.

The same might be said concerning the present negotiations held between Chief Osiris and John Trochman's Militia of Montana (MOM). Introduced by Baumgardner, Osiris has asked Trochman if his militia would be willing to train a black separatist militia, organized for three purposes. First, to deal with any situation in the black community that is not just. Second, to deal with black-on-black crime, and, last, to organize a black counterpart to the South African-based mercenary army called the Executive Outcome.

Negotiations began between PAIN and MOM in July 1996 and has been confirmed by John Trochman.

A public announcement was scheduled  for January 1997, but the outcome is still pending.

What we have here, then, is perhaps an embryo of an alliance between black and white racialist organizations, although neither PAIN nor the Klan Kartel is of major national significance. Moreover, it is still unclear to what extent it is dependent on the friendship between two remarkable individuals, John Baumgardner and Chief Osiris. Central in the Christian Identity and PAIN ideologies is the literal demonization of the Other. Time will tell if the intimate friendship that blossomed between an evil spirit and a soulless mud man will translate into ideological change, toward a metaphoric interpretation that will move the color symbolism from the biological to the psychological plane and thus make a broader racialist coalition somewhat more feasible.