White Supremacist Leader Dies

Neuman Britton, the pastor of a white supremacist church who was said to be next in line to lead the racist Aryan Nations organization, has died.

Britton, believed to be 75, died Saturday in San Diego of complications from cancer, according to Tom Metzger, founder of the White Aryan Resistance, and a posting on the Aryan Nations Web site.

The FBI and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist organizations, confirmed his death. An FBI spokeswoman, however, said Britton died Friday.

Britton was “a longtime white supremacist and a movement icon,” said Joe Roy, the director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In 1998, Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler named Britton as his successor. But Britton, who lived on a 6-acre compound in Escondido, was known to be suffering from melanoma, and observers did not expect him to take over the organization, Roy said.

The Aryan Nations was dealt a major blow last year when it lost a $6.3-million civil rights lawsuit and was forced into bankruptcy. “There’s not much left to take over,” Roy said.

Britton was part of the so-called Christian Identity Movement, whose adherents believe that white people are the lost tribe of Israel and that Jews are half human and half Satan.

Britton, a former member of the American Nazi Party, was married at one time to Joan Kahl, the widow of Gordon Kahl, an activist with the white supremacist Posse Comitatus.

At his compound, also used as a day-care center, Britton led small church services that typically attracted few people.