A man who has come under fire for establishing an all-white community in Arkansas will come to Wetumpka this month to speak at the Southern Cultural Center, a Neo-confederate group based out of Wetumpka.
Eric Orwoll is a co-founder of “Return to the Land,” a group that is looking to use the First Amendment right to “freedom of association” to set up communities that can skirt anti-discrimination and fair housing laws.
The Return to the Land website indicates a “Deep South Community I” is in the initial planning stages and includes Alabama as one of the potential locations.
A post to the Southern Cultural Center Facebook page announces that Orwoll will be the speaker at the group’s August monthly meeting. The SCC describes Return to the Land as “an organization dedicated to fostering intentional communities for those who value their European heritage.”
Return to the Land is planning three communities to be located in the Deep South or Appalachian regions of the country, with maps indicating Alabama could be the site of such a future settlement.
Arkansas Attorney General Tom Griffin told Forward last week that an initial review could not find any violations of state or federal law by the group.
“Racism has no place in a free society, but from a legal perspective, we have not seen anything that would indicate any state or federal laws have been broken,” Griffin said in a statement provided to the Forward by a spokesperson.
That’s by design, as the Return to the Land substack explains the group’s complicated legal framework for attempting to steer clear of illegal activity.
“Unfortunately, over time, civil rights activists and activist judges have worked to limit the right to free association, particularly for exclusive communities like Return to the Land,” a post on the substack posits. “Starting with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and continuing with laws like the 1968 Fair Housing Act, a series of laws were passed that restricted individuals—especially European Americans—from freely associating with others of their choosing.”
The group claims an exemption in the Fair Housing Act, the “private club exemption,” would allow it to skirt anti-discrimination clauses within the Fair Housing Act, but that it is unnecessary because RTTL itself does not buy or sell land.
It is the position of Return to the Land that their members own the land, and therefore the members can decide who is and isn’t welcome on their property. And their members can be exclusively “those of European heritage who believe in traditional relationships, marriages, families, and gender roles amongst other criteria” under the First Amendment.
