White supremacists target middle America - USATODAY.com: The white-power movement is changing its marketing strategy to broaden its appeal.
The USA's largest neo-Nazi group is ditching its trademark brown Nazi uniform with swastika armband for a more muted look in black fatigues.
In Pennsylvania, the Keystone State Skinheads is changing its name to Keystone United to attract members.
The nation's largest white-power website, Stormfront, has a new feature that lets members create social-networking pages. The site has had as many as 42,700 unique visitors in a 24-hour period this month, a steady rise since it started in 1995.
Supremacist groups are on the rise as they market themselves to middle America, according to leaders of the groups and organizations that monitor them. They are fueled by the debate over illegal immigration and a struggling economy.
"Many white supremacist groups are going more mainstream," says Jack Levin, a Northeastern University criminologist who studies hate crime. "They are eliminating the sheets and armbands. … The groups realize if they want to be attractive to middle-class types, they need to look middle-class."
Levin estimates fewer than 50,000 people are members of white supremacist groups, but he says their influence is growing with a more sophisticated approach.
From 2006 to 2007, the number of such groups rose by 5% to 888, says the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks them through news reports and other sources. The number is up 48% since 2000.
