Weird Little Guys

James talks with Molly Conger about the javelina and their installable appetite for golf courses.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65x0RvhJNa8 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/nov/05/conservation.sciencenews   

https://zoologicalbulletin.de/BzB_Volumes/Volume_56_1_2/049_054_BzB56_1_2_Moraves_Jiri_and_B%C3%B6hme_Wolfgang.pdf  

https://www.azgfd.com/wildlife-conservation/living-with-wildl...

In 1964, crosses burned all over Mississippi, signaling a return of the Ku Klux Klan. Their big debut was perfectly timed as a show of support for Byron de la Beckwith.


Sources & Further Reading:

Massengill, Reed (2024). Portrait of a racist: Byron De La Beckwith and the Assassination of Medgar Evers. Univ. of Tennessee Press.

DeLaughter, Bobby (2001). Never Too Late: A Prosecutor’s Story of Justi...

Byron de la Beckwith was tried for the same murder three times. In 1964, it just wasn't generally considered illegal for a white man to kill a black man in Mississippi.

Sources & Further Reading:

Massengill, Reed (2024). Portrait of a racist: Byron De La Beckwith and the Assassination of Medgar Evers. Univ. of Tennessee Press.

DeLaughter, Bobby (2001). Never Too Late: A Prosecutor’s Story of Justice in the Medgar Ever...

In the months leading up to the murder of Medgar Evers, the man who killed him was watching his world crumble. Byron de la Beckwith had dedicated his life to the cause of segregation, but it was a losing battle. The governor of Mississippi had backed down, allowing a second black student to enter Ole Miss. Governor George Wallace in Alabama backed down, too. Integration was creeping in all over. That, and his wife left him. 

S...

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Segregated schools didn't react right away, but segregationists did. Within months, the Citizens' Councils began to form in counties across Mississippi. And Byron de la Beckwith was one of the group's earliest and most enthusiastic members.

Sources & Further Reading:

Massengill, Reed (2024). Portrait of a racist: Byron...

Byron de la Beckwith and Medgar Evers never met. Evers didn’t even see the man who killed him. But the man and his killer grew up a hundred miles apart, fought in the same war, worked similar jobs, and were both deeply invested in the outcome over the fight for integration.

Sources & Further Reading:

Massengill, Reed (2024). Portrait of a racist: Byron De La Beckwith and the Assassination of Medgar Evers. Univ. of Tenness...

It's a Weird Little Guys classic episode - the story of the Atomwaffen member who murdered two other Atomwaffen members. Stay tuned until the end for some updates to the story.

Sources & Further Reading:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67075979/united-states-v-clendaniel/

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71119306/united-states-v-brandon-russell/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/white-power-newslett...

This week, Molly watched Citizen Vigilante, a new film from the world's worst director.

Sources & Further Reading:

https://scoutmagazine.ca/remembering-gastowns-ambitious-but-doomed-modern-german-restaurant/

https://www.dailysabah.com/arts/cinema/hanau-attack-film-angers-victims-families

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/03/the-fall-of-armie-hammer-a-family-saga-of-sex-money-drugs-and-betrayal

https://peo...

On the night of June 11, 1963, Byron de la Beckwith murdered Medgar Evers with a single shot. But how did he end up hiding in a bush across the street from the home of a civil rights leader?

Sources & Further Reading:

Massengill, Reed (2024). Portrait of a racist: Byron De La Beckwith and the Assassination of Medgar Evers. Univ. of Tennessee Press.

Zinn, Howard. (1964) SNCC: The New Abolitionists. Beacon Pr...

Last week, a federal judge ordered the Department of the Interior to stop implementation of a Trump executive order that would whitewash history at National Park sites. A leaked database shows the materials that parks employees had flagged for removal. They want to 'make America great' by erasing its past.

Sources & Further Reading:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-truth-and-sanity...

In 1980, Texas Klan Grand Dragon Louis Beam was running a paramilitary training camp outside of Houston. But they weren't just training klansmen for the race war. They ran a boy scout camp on the weekends.

Sources and further reading:

Belew, Kathleen. Bring the War Home : The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. Harvard University Press, 2018.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp...

In 1967, segregationist lawyer Jack Kershaw swore out a warrant against George Ware, an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. By the end of the week, a congressman was denouncing Ware on the house floor as an outside agitator. But what is an outside agitator? What do we mean when we blame unrest on these untrustworthy outsiders? Where does that idea come from? And is it even true?

Sources & Furthe...

We lost one of the greats last month. Laura Sullivan was an antifascist researcher, a photographer, a journalist, a friend, a mother, and a mentor. She was a legend and we were lucky to have her while we did.

You can make a donation to One People's Project, the antifascist organization Laura was involved in for more than two decades, here:
https://onepeoplesproject.com/donate/

Daryle Lamont Jenkins' tribute to his longti...

Wrapping up the discussion of the MAGA narrative surrounding the SPLC indictment, Molly addresses the question of money. If the administration is implying the SPLC fully funded the 2017 Unite the Right rally, what would that mean? How much does something like that cost? And who actually paid for it?

Sources & Additional Reading:
https://www.integrityfirstforamerica.org/exhibits

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/...

The MAGA media is running with the President's theory that the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 wasn't real. That's offensive to anyone with a solid relationship with reality, but it's especially hurtful for the guys who worked very hard to plan that nazi rally.

Link to the September 29, 2025 episode of I Don't Speak German that was mentioned:  https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/136-the-final-cantwell 

The President of the United States went on 60 Minutes last month and claimed that the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 was fake, a hoax perpetrated by the Southern Poverty Law Center. He's referring to allegations made in the recent indictment against the SPLC that one of their paid informants was a member of the planning chat for the rally. But what does the indictment actually say? And what kind of person snitches...

Molly answers some of your burning questions about important stuff, like a nazi's tuna casserole recipe, who came up with a rhyming phrase about fascist violence, and what kind of cake she's eating this week.

Sources:

Testa, M. Militant Anti-Fascism: A Hundred Years of Resistance. AK Press, 2015.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/m-testa-militant-anti-fascism 

https://socialistworker.co.uk/wp-cont...

In the final part of the story about Jack Kershaw, we'll talk about his legal career. Before he represented MLK's assassin, before he sculpted a gigantic racist statue out of old bathtubs, he got a law degree from a part time night school program at the YMCA so he could do his part to stop integration.

Sources:

Phillips, Betsy. Dynamite Nashville: the FBI, the KKK, and the bombers beyond their control. Third Man Books...