Last modified: 2016-11-25 by rick wyatt
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Aryan Nations Shield (without border)
image by A.H., 26 October 1999
See also:
The group was founded in 1974 by Richard Girnt Butler, as the political arm of the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian, a white supremacist church founded in 1946 as the White Identity Church of Jesus Christ-Christian, which adopted its present name, used today by Aryan Nations churches, in 1957. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has called Aryan Nations a "terrorist threat" and the RAND Corporation has called it the "first truly nationwide terrorist network" in the US, but there were several splits since 2001 which brought the decline to the organization. As of December 2007, there were two main factions that claimed descent from Butler's group.
Sources:
Historical Flags of Our Ancestors website: Political Flags of Extremism - Part 1 (a-m)
Aryan Nations at Wikipedia
Church of Jesus Christ-Christian at Wikipedia
Tomislav Todorovic, 31 Aug 2013
Aryan Nations could by the way even be regarded as separatists since they want to create an "Aryan National State" in the northwestern USA.
Marcus Wendel, 13 August 1999
For reference, they call it the Aryan Nations Shield; but it is carried in parades in the form of a flag, and displayed like a banner as well.
A.H., 26 October 1999
In the newspapers and on television they are almost always shown with the four-color flag — sometimes attached to a pole
at the left, and sometimes suspended from the top edge like a banner - which is always square. They also sometimes carry plastic or kevlar shields which are emblazoned with this image. The square sometimes has a border, which varies in color and width. Perhaps this denotes sub-groups?
A.H., 28 October 1999
Meaning of each element (edited for length and content):
Of course the whole arrangement is reminiscent of the well known Southern Cross flag, though this is not admitted in the interpretation above.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 3 June 2000
image by A.H. and Tomislav Todorovic, 29 Sep 2013
The "shield" appears, with a golden border all around, as the sleeve patch on their uniforms (photo), which is also used on the everyday clothes (photo, photo) and also appears as the car marking (photo). With an additional white border, this pattern also makes a flag (photo).
Tomislav Todorovic, 29 Sep 2013
image by A.H., Pete Loeser and Tomislav Todorovic, 28 Aug 2013
Oblong variant of the same flag can be seen here.
Note the use of Nazi flag, which shows that the group, although not originally a Nazi one, has converged towards the neo-Nazism.
Tomislav Todorovic, 28 Aug 2013
image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 27 May 1998
I have seen that version used, but I have also seen the other one used far more often.
A.H., 26 October 1999
Number seven of the description above proves that the flag should be always square.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 27 October 1999
I have seen them use the black and white version, always in the 2:3 proportions whenever I have seen it. It seems to be an older version, though. I saw the black and white flag first, quite some time ago, and the colored version appeared later. (Perhaps this is when they chose to attach meaning to the shape.) They rarely use the black and white version now though, so it has apparently been displaced by the colored square.
A.H., 28 October 1999
image by A.H. and Tomislav Todorovic, 29 Sep 2013
Another flag has the "shield", within a golden border, on white field, like here (WARNING: displays people giving Roman salute). More photos of this flag could have been found on another website of the Aryan Nations which was replaced by a site of the Ku Klux Klan at the same address, which suggests that the faction owning the site has merged into the KKK, Therefore the said photos cannot be listed as the sources, although they actually served as the models for the above image, for they were giving a better view of the said flag than the photo which was given above as the only remaining source.
Tomislav Todorovic, 29 Sep 2013
image by A.H. and Tomislav Todorovic, 31 Aug 2013
The basic design of the Aryan Nations' flag is also combined with the U.S. national flag, by replacing the canton with stars. Photos of such flags can be found here, here and here. These sources reveal that not only the Aryan Nations closely cooperate with other similar groups, but also incorporate elements of their symbolism into that of their own, mostly in form of the patches attached to their uniforms, like those on which the Ku Klux Klan cross is rotated and turned into the saltire, its black parts repainted into blue and the blood drop in center replaced with the original Aryan Nations' square flag pattern (no flags with this emblem were seen so far).
Tomislav Todorovic, 31 Aug 2013
One more example of the U.S. flag with the canton replaced by the flag of Aryan Nations, in use in 2016, is seen in this photo.
(NB: photo includes signs with racist messages; the webserver this instance of the photo is hosted at is unsympathetic to Aryan Nations' views.)
António Martins-Tuválkin, 24 November 2016
image by Tomislav Todorovic, 10 Oct 2013
Aryan Nations also uses a white flag charged with a different emblem: sword over the letter N, both in blue, surrounded with a bicolor ring, top half of which is red and charged with the inscription ARYAN NATIONS, and bottom half is blue and charged with the inscription OUR RACE IS OUR NATION; the tip of the sword is set over the bottom of the ring, dividing it into two. The flag was used in Gettysburg, PA, on 2010-06-19 (photo here) and in Pulaski, TN, on 2010-07-18 (b/w photo here and color photo here, with larger image).
Tomislav Todorovic, 10 Oct 2013