Sam Francis (writer) facts for kids

Samuel Todd Francis (April 29, 1947 – February 15, 2005), known as Sam Francis, was an American columnist and writer.

He was a columnist and editor for the conservative Washington Times until he was dismissed after making racist remarks at the 1995 American Renaissance conference. Francis would later become a "dominant force" on the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist organization identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Francis was chief editor of the council's newsletter, Citizens Informer, until his death in 2005.

Political scientist and writer George Michael, an expert on extremism, identified Francis as one of "the far right's higher-caliber intellectuals." The Southern Poverty Law Center described Francis as an important white nationalist writer known for his "ubiquitous presence of his columns in racist forums and his influence over the general direction of right-wing extremism" in the United States. Analyst Leonard Zeskind called Francis the "philosopher king" of the radical right, writing that, "By any measure, Francis's white nationalism was as subtle as an eight-pound hammer pounding on a twelve inch I beam." Scholar Chip Berlet described Francis as an ultraconservative ideologue akin to Pat Buchanan, whom Francis advised. Anarcho-capitalist political theorist Hans-Hermann Hoppe called Francis "one of the leading theoreticians and strategists of the Buchananite movement." To the white supremacist Jared Taylor, "Francis was the premier philosopher of white racial consciousness of our time."

Early life

Francis was born Chattanooga, Tennessee. He received a bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1969, and a master's degree in 1971 and doctorate in 1979 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Career

The Washington Times

Francis was an aide to Republican Senator John East of North Carolina before joining the editorial staff of The Washington Times in 1986. Five years later, he became a columnist for the newspaper, and his column became syndicated.

In addition to his journalistic career, Francis was an adjunct scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Auburn, Alabama.

In June 1995, editor-in-chief Wesley Pruden "had cut back on Francis' column" after The Washington Times ran his essay criticizing the Southern Baptist Convention for its approval of a resolution which apologized for slavery. In the piece, Francis asserted that "The contrition of the Southern Baptists for slavery and racism is a bit more than a politically fashionable gesture intended to massage race relations" and that "Neither slavery' nor racism' as an institution is a sin." .....

Later career

After being fired from The Washington Times, Francis continued to write a column, which was syndicated through Creators Syndicate at least as early as January 2000.

Francis became a "dominant force" on the Council of Conservative Citizens. Francis was chief editor of the council's quarterly newsletter, Citizens Informer, until his death in 2005. Francis wrote the council's Statement of Principles, which "called for America to be a Christian nation" and "oppose[d] all efforts to mix the races of mankind." In his writings, Francis advocated for a moratorium on all immigration, plus an indefinite suspension of all immigration from non-European and non-Western people.

Francis was also an editor of The Occidental Quarterly, a white nationalist journal edited by Kevin Lamb and sponsored by William Regnery II.

He served as a contributor and editor of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's quarterly, Modern Age. After his dismissal from The Washington Times and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Francis continued to write a syndicated column for VDARE and Chronicles magazine, and spoke at meetings of American Renaissance and the Council of Conservative Citizens. He attended the American Friends of the British National Party's meeting on April 22, 2000, where he heard and met Nick Griffin. His articles also appeared in Middle American News. Francis' last published work was an article penned for the 2005 IHS Press anti-war anthology, Neo-Conned!.

Francis died on February 15, 2005, at Prince George's Hospital Center in Cheverly, Maryland, following an unsuccessful surgery to treat an aortic aneurysm. Francis was buried at the foot of Lookout Mountain.

Thought and legacy

Francis's term "anarcho-tyranny" refers to armed dictatorship without rule of law, or a Hegelian synthesis when the state tyrannically or oppressively regulates citizens' lives yet is unable or unwilling to enforce fundamental protective law. Commentators have invoked the term in reference to situations when governments focus on weapon confiscation instead of stopping looters. On Francis's death, the Rockford Institute magazine Chronicles dedicated its April 2005 issue to his memory and the concept.

Writing in The Week, commentator Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote that Francis's writings, and his rejection of movement conservatism, presaged the 2016 election of Donald Trump.

Two Republican candidates in the 2022 electoral cycle, Blake Masters and Joe Kent, have promoted Francis’ writings.

Although Francis sometimes engaged with Christian thinkers and publications during his life, he was also harshly critical of Christianity in his later years and his worldview has been described as irreligious and materialistic. Francis wrote that “Christianity today is the enemy of the West and the race that created it” and suggested that the “religious wrong” operated under a “false consciousness” that prevented white Christians from recognizing their true interests. Because of this, he has been cited as part of a trend toward increasingly “secular, even pagan” ideas among certain segments of the American radical right.

Works

• (1984). Power and History, The Political Thought of James Burnham. University Press of America ISBN: 0-8191-3753-7
• (1994). Beautiful Losers: Essays on the Failure of American Conservatism. University of Missouri Press ISBN: 0-8262-0976-9
• (1997). Revolution From the Middle. Middle America Press ISBN: 1-887898-01-8
• (1997). "Classical Republicanism and the Right to Bear Arms," in Costs of War. Transaction Publishers, pp. 53–66 ISBN: 0-7658-0487-5
• (1999). James Burnham: Thinkers of Our Time. London: Claridge Press ISBN: 1-870626-32-X
• (2001). America Extinguished: Mass Immigration and the Disintegration of American Culture. Americans for Immigration Control Publishers
• (2003). Ethnopolitics: Immigration, Race, and the American Political Future. Representative Government Press ISBN: 0-9672154-1-2
• (2005). "Refuge of Scoundrels: Patriotism, True and False, in the Iraq Controversy," in Neo-Conned! IHS Press, pp. 151–160 ISBN: 978-1932528060
• (2006). Shots Fired: Sam Francis on America's Culture War. FGF Books edited by Peter Gemma ISBN: 0-9777362-0-2
• (2007). Essential Writings on Race. New Century Foundation ISBN: 978-0-9656383-7-1
• (2016). Leviathan and Its Enemies. Washington Summit Publishers ISBN: 978-1593680497

See also

In Spanish: Samuel Francis para niños