Panel | From the Margins to the Mainstream: Honoring Leonard Zeskind's Work on Understanding and Resisting the White Nationalist Movement in America

Join us for a panel discussion honoring the work of Leonard Zeskind, who spent his life researching white nationalism and right wing hate groups. This event coincides with the paperback release of Zeskind’s book, Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream (2009), a sweeping history of white nationalism’s four-decade rise in America, and how it can help us understand our present moment. Leonard Zeskind (1949–2025) spent four decades researching – often in-person – the white nationalist movement, from think tanks and publications to armed militia groups and Holocaust deniers. A MacArthur Fellow, he founded the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR) in 1983 to carry the work forward. Blood and Politics, published in 2009, remains the definitive account of the post–Civil Rights era white nationalist movement. An essential study of American racism, Blood and Politics is thorough, careful, and troublingly prescient. Students who attend the event will receive a copy of Zeskind’s book. Moderator Daniel HoSang, American Studies Panelists Devin Burghart, President and Executive Director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR)Loretta J. Ross, Associate Professor of the Study of Women & Gender, Smith CollegeCarol Smith, Zeskind’s wife and life partner of 46 yearsKenneth S. Stern, Director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate Made possible by a generous gift from the Jason M. Folk Memorial Fund.