William Gayley Simpson
William Gayley Simpson | |
|---|---|
Photo of Simpson used as the cover of a 2003 printing of Which Way Western Man? | |
| Born | July 23, 1892 Elizabeth, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Died | December 31, 1990 (aged 98) Cooperstown, New York, U.S. |
| Education |
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| Organization(s) | National Civil Liberties Bureau, National Alliance |
| Notable work |
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| Spouse |
Harriet Whitcher (m. 1965) |
| Children | 1 |
William Gayley Simpson (July 23, 1892 – December 31, 1990) was an American neo-Nazi author, Presbyterian clergyman and lecture-circuit speaker. From the late 1910s to the 1920s, Simpson was a Christian left-wing labor activist and the associate director for the National Civil Liberties Bureau, the precursor to the American Civil Liberties Union.
He went on to live an ascetic Christian life, which gained him some amount of notoriety with American Christians, before traveling to India and Japan. In the late 1920s, Simpson became disillusioned with Christianity and his former politics and began lecturing criticizing Christianity and promoting Nietzschean ideas. He authored a book on these ideas, Toward The Rising Sun, in 1935.
Simpson later became a White supremacist and a member of the neo-Nazi group the National Alliance, led by William Luther Pierce. Simpson is most well-known for his 1978 book Which Way Western Man?, which claims there is a Jewish plot against White people, calls for violence against Jews, and says that Adolf Hitler was right. Simpson's ideology and works, particularly Which Way Western Man? has had an influence on several White supremacist and neo-Nazi figures.