When Richard Spencer stood in front of a crowd in Washington, D.C., last November and made a Nazi-style salute as he praised Donald Trump, he became America’s most famous white nationalist. A few weeks later, his hometown of Whitefish, Montana, became the unexpected battleground for a campaign of neo-Nazi harassment.Spencer’s mom initially reacted to her son’s fame by separating herself from his alt-right views. To prevent his nonprofit white supremacist think tank, the National Policy Institute, from being registered at one of her properties, Sherry Spencer contacted a local realtor, Tanya Gersh, for advice. Gersh counseled Sherry to sell the property and donate some of the money to a human rights organization which is exactly what Sherry did.She later claimed Gersh had pressured her into the decision.Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, was outraged by Gersh’s alleged actions and published her personal information on the internet, unleashing a flood of hate comments, not only about the property sale but also attacking her Jewish faith.Gersh and the Southern Poverty Law Center are now suing Anglin for online-turned-real-world harassment.
This segment originally aired May 9, 2017, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.Read next: “A woman’s lawsuit against a neo-Nazi’s ‘troll storm’ could change how to fight back against online harassment”
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