The Aryan Freedom Network (AFN) is a membership-based neo-Nazi group headquartered in De Kalb, Texas.
AFN is a self-described “White Racialist” and “National Socialist” group with chapters throughout the country. It promotes the idea of white unity and often collaborates with other white supremacist organizations, including Klan groups, hate music bands, racist skinheads and various neo-Nazi organizations.
In Their Own Words
“The Aryan Freedom Network is unapologetic committed to the interests, ideas, security and cultural values of the White Race. We are determined to protect our Race from going into extinction.” — From the Aryan Freedom Network’s website, January 2025
“We must show the world who we are. That we are warriors. Aryan men and women coming together as one to fight for our freedom. To take back our land.” — Dalton Henry Stout, aka “Brother Henry,” at a “Dixie Unity Rally” in Alabama, May 4, 2024
“White people have become slaves in their own country. In their own homeland. And it’s nobody else’s fault. It’s our own fault. It’s the white race’s fault.” — Tonia Sue Berry, speaking under the pseudonym “Daisy,” speaking at “Aryan Fest,” Oct. 21, 2023
“Race mixing, cripples God’s original design, the plan God had for every race. He gave each race distinct characteristics, which makes them different from all others. ‘Race mixing,’ is an attempt to destroy God’s plan for the races. It violates the inherent “blueprint” for the genes of each human body these genes become mixed up, producing abnormal or irregular patterns.” — From a page called “Race-Mixing,” on the Aryan Freedom Network’s website, December 2021
Background
The Aryan Freedom Network was first founded as an “information center for new individuals and friends of the White Racialist Movement” in 2018. Its stated goal was “to connect, educate, and show Racial Unity,” with the goal of forming a whites-only state.
Dalton Henry Stout (who uses the pseudonym “Brother Henry”) and Tonia Sue Berry (who uses variations on the pseudonyms “Sister Daisy,” “Daisy,” or “Daisy Barr”) lead AFN.
Both Stout and Tonia Sue Berry have longstanding ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Jeff Berry, Tonia Sue Berry’s father, once led the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Jeff Berry ran the Indiana-based Klan group until 2001, when he was sentenced to seven years in prison after he and another Klansman held two journalists hostage in his home.
Like Tonia Sue Berry, Stout and his family have an extensive history with white supremacist groups. “Brother Henry,” the pseudonym that Stout uses at AFN, co-hosted a conference in 2018 with neo-Nazi Billy Roper on the topic of “White Unity.” In early 2021, an Israeli antifascist group identified George Bois Stout, Dalton Stout’s father, as the leader of the Texas-based Church of the Ku Klux Klan after hacking an affiliated organization’s website. The group alleged that George Stout posted on Stormfront, a forum popular with white supremacists, under the username “TexasKKK,” though some of the user’s same posts have been signed as “Brother Henry.”
The AFN continues to collect donations to a PO box in De Kalb, Texas, that multiple people-finding websites show is registered to George Stout, Dalton’s father. Other groups that used the same P.O. box in the past include the White Knights of Texas and the Church of Ku Klux Klan.
AFN held its first “White Unity Conference” in Longview, Texas, in September 2021. Its speakers included Dalton Stout, Tonia Sue Berry and other figures from the Christian Identity and neo-Nazi movements. The event marked a pivotal point for AFN. In early 2022, a few months after the group’s first conference, AFN relaunched itself as a membership-based organization.
Most of AFN’s members operate behind pseudonyms, hide their identities in public photos that the group shares on social media, and hold their gatherings on private land to avoid scrutiny.
Since rebranding itself as membership-based organization 2022, AFN has said in social media posts and on its website that it has grown to nearly three dozen chapters throughout the country. The group has provided little evidence beyond periodic announcements to support these assertions. SPLC researchers have found that much of the group’s activity has been concentrated in Texas. SPLC’s researchers identified 12 chapters that rose to the level of in-person activity for inclusion on the hate map.
The group embraces explicit neo-Nazi rhetoric and imagery. Its website includes a page honoring The Order, a neo-Nazi group founded by Robert Jay Mathews whose members murdered a Jewish radio host in 1984 and robbed over $4.1 million from a bank and armored trucks. In a June 2024 post on Telegram, for instance, AFN described itself as “an organization that isn’t afraid to openly admit we are White Racialist and National Socialist.” Its logo features a Totenkopf, or “death’s head,” logo that is popular among white supremacists for its association with the SS-Totenkopfverbände, whose main duties in World War II-era Nazi Germany included running concentration and extermination camps. On AFN’s flag, this skull-and-bones image is encircled by oak leaves on a background of a red-and-white shield. These three colors — white, black and red — are the same ones used in the World War II-era Nazi flag.
A group for ‘white unity’
AFN has sought to bring together likeminded groups across the white supremacist movement under one umbrella for the purposes of networking.
A version of AFN’s website from 2021 included a section promoting over three dozen white supremacist organizations throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. On the same page, AFN wrote that its leaders “may not agree with everyone’s ideologies or agendas but we can come to a single point that we are in the interest of the White Aryan Race.”
Since then, AFN has removed the page promoting other organizations. In an Oct. 29, 2024, post on Telegram, Tonie Sue Berry, under the pseudonym “Daisy,” wrote: “We don’t do joint activism with the majority of groups for legal reasons, security purposes, and integrity. It’s nothing personal against other groups, it’s just in the best interest of AFN members.”
However, that has not stopped AFN from co-hosting events with Klan groups or inviting other racist organizations to its state- and national-level gatherings.
Since 2021, AFN’s annual “White Unity” conference has included attendees from a variety of groups, including white supremacist publishers and podcasters, various “active clubs,” racist skinheads, Christian Identity proponents, hate music bands, Klan groups, and assorted neo-Nazi organizations.
In addition, AFN has co-hosted events with Klan affiliates. At a Scottsboro, Alabama, event in May 2024, for instance, AFN co-hosted a “Dixie Unity Rally” with the United Klan Nation of the KKK (UKN), a Tennessee-based Klan group. A man identified as “Brother Tony,” UKN’s leader, spoke at the event, according to a list that AFN shared on social media after the event. Though not listed as a co-sponsor, the same event also featured a speaker — whom AFN identified as “Brother Alex” — from the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group founded by William Luther Pierce, whose work influenced the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, among other terrorist attacks.
Some of the more prominent or noteworthy organizations that have attended these AFN events include the National Socialist Movement, once one of the largest neo-Nazi groups in the United States; the American Futurist, a publication staffed by former members of Atomwaffen Division; 14 First , whose former leader was arrested in early 2024 on charges of driving without an active license and possessing weapons/ammunition as a convicted felon; and Crew 38, a racist skinhead group whose members have engaged in violent hate crimes, including attacking a Black man in Washington state in 2018.
AFN’s encounters with law enforcement
Some members of AFN have faced law enforcement scrutiny or criminal charges in relation to their involvement with the group’s activities.
In February 2024, federal authorities arrested and charged a Minnesota man whom they identified as a member of AFN on charges of possessing ammunition as a felon. According to a criminal complaint, Andrew David Munsinger, who was convicted of selling methamphetamine in 2007 and 2009, attended multiple AFN meetups, both in Minnesota and Texas, and attempted to participate in a weapons training that the group held in Indiana. He introduced himself using the name “Thor” at these events.
An informant told federal investigators that Munsinger was removed from the training due to his felony status, according to court documents. Authorities alleged in a criminal complaint that Munsinger described himself to informants as a “huge gun guy.” During one June 2023 AFN event, federal authorities alleged that Munsinger “discussed so-called accelerationist attacks, how he agreed with the ideology, and that he could conduct an accelerationist attack.”
Within the white power movement, accelerationism refers to the belief that a whites-only state can only be achieved only through extreme violence, rather than political means.
In August 2023, several members of AFN were issued citations from the Vidor Police Department while handing out flyers in Vidor, Texas. Vidor authorities traveled to the demonstration after receiving multiple calls about armed individuals wearing masks causing a disturbance on an intersection.
After officers witnessed members of AFN entering the roadway to hand out flyers to passing vehicles, they issued citations to several of the men for violating city ordinance in relation to entering moving traffic for the purposes of soliciting or peddling.
Multiple local news reports identified the participants in the demonstration as Caleb Bentley and Justin McConnell, both of Houston; Maxwell Barragy of Lavernia; Tyler Everett of Magnolia; Matthew Dawson of Richmond; and Mark Hayes of Humble.
University of Georgia employee tied to AFN
Though AFN has held most of its annual gatherings in Texas, where the Stouts are based, the group shifted its yearly “Aryan Fest” to Georgia in October 2024. Local antifascist researchers identified the location of the event as a property in Lexington, Georgia, located about 30 minutes outside Athens.
Atlanta Antifa, an antifascist research collective, shared footage showing a property in Lexington with multiple parked cars, several tents and a large wooden swastika lying on the grass. Property records show that George Haynie III and Shannon Haynie owned the parcel.
Atlanta Antifa identified George Haynie III as an employee of University of Georgia, where he works as a machine shop manager. His wife, Shannon, founded a nonprofit called Schatzkind Services in August 2024, according to research published by Atlanta Antifa and records from the Internal Revenue Service. Shannon Haynie is also listed as the incorporator on a registration document filed with the Georgia secretary of state, which regulates nonprofits, on July 31, 2024. On both IRS and Georgia state documents, Schatzkind Services uses the Lexington, Georgia, address that Atlanta Antifa identified as the location of “Aryan Fest.”
Schatzkind Services’ website described it as “dedicated to providing safe living space and support services to pregnant mothers and their children in our folk community.” Its logo uses a life rune, which became popular in U.S. and international neo-Nazi circles due to its association with the World War II-era Nazi Party (NSDAP). Among the various uses of the life rune by the NSDAP include the logo of the Lebensborn (“source of life”) program, which the Schutzstaffel, or SS, created in 1935. The program was intended to grow the German population by encouraging women that the NSDAP deemed “racially fit” to have children through providing financial support, services and maternity homes.
After Atlanta Antifa identified the Haynies, the University of Georgia launched an investigation into George Haynie III and placed him on administrative leave, according to reporting from the Athens Banner-Herald.
In a statement, UGA said that Haynie “acknowledged that the event had taken place on property that he and his wife co-owned, but he denied direct personal involvement.” The university said it found no violation of its policies, adding that UGA “cannot discipline employees for personal, off-campus expressive activity, no matter how offensive or repugnant those activities may be.”
Haynie was allowed to return to work on Dec. 18, 2024.
Student activists held a demonstration in mid-January to protest the university’s decision.