Rise of Hate Groups in the U.S. The SPLC has documented an explosive rise in the number of hate groups since the turn of the century, driven in part by anger over Latino immigration and demographic projections showing that whites will no longer hold majority status in the country by around 2040. As the chart shows, this rise accelerated in 2009, the year President Obama took office, before leveling off and beginning to decline in 2011. In the most recent count in 2015, the total number of groups increased for the first time in three years. Graphic: SPLC

By Molly Evans
2 August 2016 (KUT) – There are 892 active hate groups in the U.S. In Texas, there are 84 — the most of any other state, according to an interactive U.S. map from Southern Poverty Law Center. SPLC gathered the data from hate group publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement reports, field sources and news reports. The map (PDF) shows the number and location of hate groups, as well as the total number of hate groups in each state as of 2015.

What is a hate group?

The SPLC says all hate groups “have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” The group says there’s been a 14 percent increase in hate groups since 2014.

The largest hate group In Texas: the Ku Klux Klan

Of the 84 active groups in Texas, 52 are Ku Klux Klan chapters across the state. Formed in 1865, the KKK is the oldest of American hate groups, and today there are dozens of competing sects within the organization, according to SPLC. There are 190 chapters in the U.S. The SPLC says there were 28 klan chapters in 1990. That number skyrocketed to 221 in 2010, and then declined to 72 groups in 2014. Then it jumped back up in 2015. That means in less than two years the numbers of active KKK groups has more than doubled. In North Texas, active groups include a Dallas and Fort Worth chapter of the Texas Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and United White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. [more]

There Are 84 Active Hate Groups In Texas, The Most Of Any State