Editor’s note: This article discusses extreme racist and antisemitic sentiments.
Some Waterloo residents woke up on Sunday morning to find flyers from a neo-Nazi group on their lawns or doorsteps. The one-page flyers, packaged from the Texas-based Aryan Freedom Network, were placed in zip-lock plastic sandwich bags. The flyers call for people to join the white-supremacist, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ group.
“Police said they received two reports of the flyers Sunday morning, one in the area of Clough and Arden streets and another in the 500 block of Magnolia Parkway,” The Courier reported.
The Waterloo Police Department said it was unclear how many flyers were distributed, but there was no reason to believe they represented an actual threat to residents. The department said it is investigating, and has asked anyone who found a flyer or has video of the flyers being distributed to contact them. The city has also contacted the U.S. Justice Department about the incident.
In addition to distributing the flyers to homes in Waterloo, a person also left flyers at the door of KWWL-TV. The station’s security camera recorded an individual in a hoodie wearing gloves depositing the propaganda.
“As the mayor of Waterloo, a city that prides itself on its diversity, I am deeply disturbed by the recent reports of racist extremist groups distributing recruitment materials in our community,” Mayor Quentin Hart said in a statement. As a dedicated public servant, who has recently been the target of discrimination and threats, I want to be clear: There is no place for hate groups in Waterloo.”
The Aryan Freedom Network (AFN) was founded in 2018 in the small northeastern Texas town of De Kalb by a disgruntled member of the Ku Klux Klan. It is one of the smaller neo-Nazi hate groups in Texas, but claims to have members in 25 states. Exactly what that claim means for the group’s size is unclear, because researchers studying white supremacist groups say the AFN’s requirements for joining have hobbled its attempts to grow its membership.
“On its Telegram channel, AFN leaders laid out their criteria for membership, which include rejecting ‘Judeo-Christianity’ as well as Islam, Satanism and any other religion aside from traditional Christianity,” Forward reported last year. “Group members must support ‘the creation of an autonomous White Aryan European homeland in North America’ and oppose nonwhite immigration to Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and are also required to reach out and network with ‘new people and like-minded organizations.’”
AFN does little outside Texas, and even in Texas it does little beyond tossing flyers onto peoples’ lawns in the dead of night when there are no witnesses. In 2022, it repeatedly targeted neighborhoods in the Houston area with its flyers.
“The flyers, each contained in a plastic baggie, feature Adolf Hitler and the phrase ‘we can do it again,’” Vice reported.
The Waterloo flyers didn’t include Hitler, but did feature the Nazi SS death’s head emblem, in case anyone was unsure what was meant by the flyer’s line, “Your race is calling will you answer?”
The incident in Waterloo was one of a few distributions of AFN propaganda flyers outside Texas that has been recorded. The group has held meetings on two occasions in northern Idaho, an area with multiple active white-supremacist groups. In January 2023 it distributed flyers in Fresno, California, advertising an upcoming “meet-and-greet.”
Responding to questions from the news site GV Wire, AFN said “any attending must have a background check done.” The background check was for security reasons, the groups said. But the application an attendee had to submit also required a person to assert they were “100% of White European ancestry. Including: Nordic, Slavic, Mediterranean, Celtic or Germanic background.”
Over the last two years, AFN has occasionally moved beyond distributing flyers in Texas, as it embraced the moral panic stoked by more mainstream anti-LGBTQ groups, like Moms For Liberty, and conservative Republican politicians over drag brunches and drag queen storytimes, and members have joined in protests at these events in the Dallas area.
The flyers distributed in Waterloo have a disclaimer in small print at the bottom of the page: “Distributed randomly without malicious intent.” That appears to be an attempt to help someone caught distributing the flyers argue they can’t be charged with anything more than littering.
There have been several incidents of white supremacists tossing propaganda flyers onto people’s lawns late at night in eastern Iowa since 2017, but almost all of those involved a different neo-Nazi group. This is the first time AFN flyers have been distributed.
In his statement, Mayor Hart thanked the people of Waterloo for their commitment to making the city “a community of opportunity and a welcoming home for all.”
“Together, we must stand against hate and ensure that our community remains a place where all individuals can feel safe and valued.”
Waterloo remains one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. — a legacy of the elaborate race-based zoning restrictions and housing covenants instituted in the early to mid-20th century amid a widescale white panic about the area’s growing Black population.
