After Charleston: how hate groups have changed over the years

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Jun 19, 2015

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After Charleston: how hate groups have changed over the years

A Cal State San Bernardino professor says that while extremist racist messages are pervasive on social media, brick and mortar groups are actually on the decline.

People pay their respects outside Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 18, 2015. Police captured the white suspect in a gun massacre at one of the oldest black churches in the United States, the latest deadly assault to feed simmering racial tensions. Police detained 21-year-old Dylann Roof, shown wearing the flags of defunct white supremacist regimes in pictures taken from social media, after nine churchgoers were shot dead during bible study on June 17, 2015. AFP PHOTO / MLADEN ANTONOV (Photo credit should read MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images)

A Cal State San Bernardino professor says that while extremist racist messages are pervasive on social media, brick and mortar groups are actually on the decline.

In the light of the tragic killing of nine people in a Charleston, South Carolina church, which is being investigated by the Department of Justice as a hate crime, attention is being focused on the many hate groups that exist around the country.

Last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center counted 784 active hate groups. But Brian Levin, professor of criminal justice and Director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, says that while extremist racist messages are pervasive on social media, brick and mortar groups are actually on the decline.