The Sunday meal at her grandfather’s dark house featured a cast of recurring characters and events that, by age four, Sarah knew by heart. She always loved competing with her brothers to call out names and locations. They’d almost stopped trying, but her grandfather hadn’t noticed.
“Who took meals at my daddy’s table?” he asked.
“William Dudley Pelley, Dr. Wesley Swift, Reverend Gerald L.K. Smith,” Sarah called out.
Their great-grandfather was a dead American who had eaten a lot of meals with important people. Everyone that got mentioned was a source of pride, a champion of hardworking White folks. Pelley, who almost got the United States to back Hitler, was the founder of the Silver Legion (otherwise known as the Silver Shirts) and the reason why Grandpa Thomas wore them.
“Did you meet them, Grandpa?” Blair asked.
He didn’t answer, just waved the air, frowning as if someone had farted. “As you know, Swift started the Christian Identity movement.”
He waited for his grandchildren to nod—the obligatory response to any statement that began as you know.
“No offense to the old British Israel believers, but Swift knew we had to take matters into our own hands. Sometimes, God takes his sweet time bringing about the promised change.”
He glanced upward with an apologetic smile, as though he and God had an understanding and God was not to take offense. “Dr. Swift was a prophet, even if he was a little off on his dates. We weren’t rid of...
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