{"id":12840,"date":"2026-07-21T19:24:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T14:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=12840"},"modified":"2026-07-21T19:24:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T14:24:25","slug":"inside-a-groups-push-for-whites-only-communities-heritage-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=12840","title":{"rendered":"Inside a group&#039;s push for whites-only communities &quot;heritage communities&quot;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/IuRX7XCwR5ruX1LbQMi3GGKx8wM=\/0x0:1920x1080\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/13\/1783968922717.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2019\/03\/27\/facebook-ban-white-nationalist-separatist-content-hate-speech\" target=\"_blank\">white separatist<\/a> group is openly planning a network of whites-only settlements across rural America that aim to withstand legal challenges by operating essentially as private clubs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters: <\/strong>The communities are launching in the Ozarks, Appalachia and the South as the Trump administration has backed off prosecuting many <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/03\/18\/trump-end-segregated-facilities-ban-contracts\" target=\"_blank\">civil rights<\/a> cases.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<ul>\n<li>They&#8217;re also surfacing at a time when the nation is becoming <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/06\/13\/americas-schools-white-students-minority-latinos\" target=\"_blank\">increasingly diverse<\/a>, and as the racist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2021\/09\/29\/white-replacement-theory-gains-ground-among-gop\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;great replacement theory&#8221;<\/a> has become a staple of far-right politics in recent years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The big picture: <\/strong>For nearly three years, state and federal authorities have largely watched from the sidelines as the separatist group Return to the Land (RTTL) unveiled plans and took applications for residents.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Those plans amount to intentionally challenging<strong> <\/strong>the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/crt\/fair-housing-act-1\" target=\"_blank\">Fair Housing Act of 1968<\/a>, which banned discrimination in housing. They&#8217;ve been inspired partly by recent decisions by the conservative-led U.S. Supreme Court and the Trump administration&#8217;s reversal of much of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/03\/22\/trump-2025-reverse-lbj-1965-civil-rights-poverty\" target=\"_blank\">President Lyndon Johnson&#8217;s civil rights legacy<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Catch up quick: <\/strong>RTTL established a 160-acre, whites-only community near Ravenden, Ark., in late 2023.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Using an AI-generated corporate framework discovered on 4chan, the founders structured the community as a &#8220;private membership association&#8221; linked to a for-profit LLC, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.relmanlaw.com\/media\/cases\/2402_Walker%20v.%20Return%20to%20the%20Land%20-%20Filed%20Complaint.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">court documents<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>They boast that this dual structure creates a loophole that allows them to bypass requirements of the Fair Housing Act and explicitly filter their neighbors by race and religion.<\/li>\n<li>The group said work has begun on a second site in Arkansas, and it&#8217;s planning more projects in the Ozarks, the South and Appalachia.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Zoom in: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.returntotheland.org\/about\" target=\"_blank\">RTTL&#8217;s website<\/a> states that it &#8220;help[s] groups of our members form European heritage communities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It seeks to create &#8220;a decentralized movement&#8221; and aims &#8220;to create many independent and fully functioning parallel societies.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The group also helps people and groups with &#8220;common ancestry&#8221; purchase rural land.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>By the numbers: <\/strong>About 40 people, including roughly a dozen home-schooled children, now live in the compound in Ravenden on land purchased for $237,000.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An application fee for the private membership association costs $25, after which members undergo background checks and share information about their ethnic background.<\/li>\n<li>RTTL had raised more than $200,000 as of May 2026, including $105,158 for additional chapters and $94,401 for legal-framework research, court records show. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In interviews<\/strong> with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newschannel5.com\/news\/newschannel-5-investigates\/confronting-hate\/he-thinks-hitler-may-have-been-right-now-he-wants-a-whites-only-community-in-tennessee\" target=\"_blank\">media outlets<\/a> and alt-right leaning influencers, RTTL founder Eric Orwoll has referenced Hitler, said the community had a &#8220;pretty good radar&#8221; for excluding Jews and called himself a &#8220;white identitarian.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;You&#8217;re going to get Hitler 2.0 when you deserve him. He&#8217;s not just going to show up to a people that aren&#8217;t putting in the work themselves. We have to put in that work,&#8221; Orwoll said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Aarvoll_\/status\/1900274729602474252\" target=\"_blank\">video posted on X<\/a>. <\/li>\n<li>RTTL and its lawyer did not respond to Axios&#8217; request for comment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Yes, but: <\/strong>RTTL is facing a federal lawsuit after<strong> <\/strong>a practicing Christian with Russian-Jewish ancestry applied to purchase property at the group&#8217;s whites-only settlement near Ravenden and was rejected after disclosing her heritage, her marriage to a Black man and her biracial children.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The lawsuit alleges that RTTL&#8217;s founders want to<strong> <\/strong>illegally build small whites-only neighborhoods and scale them quickly.<\/li>\n<li>Founders also want to develop settlements of up to 50,000 people and eventually &#8220;cities of thousands,&#8221; the suit alleges.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Between the lines:<\/strong> RTTL&#8217;s attempt to exploit a conservative shift in the judiciary is weighed down by a highly flawed legal defense and longstanding federal statutes, Stacy Seicshnaydre, a Tulane University Law School professor, tells Axios.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Seicshnaydre said the Civil Rights Act of 1866 is the group&#8217;s most formidable legal hurdle, noting that the Reconstruction-era statute has zero exemptions and prohibits all racial and cultural discrimination. Much of the language of that law is reflected in the 14th Amendment.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I would be very surprised to see the court take this step because it would be quite a radical one, and would unravel just very fundamental principles of property rights and inclusion,&#8221; Seicshnaydre said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What they&#8217;re saying: <\/strong>&#8220;We abhor racism, and it has no place in our society,&#8221; Jeff LeMaster, a spokesperson for Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, told Axios in a statement. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Regarding Return to the Land, we began looking into the development after receiving complaints last year. We have no updates we can share at this time.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The U.S. Department of Justice <\/strong>did not respond to Axios. <\/p>\n<p><strong>What we&#8217;re watching: <\/strong>If the federal lawsuit reaches the discovery phase, it could expose RTTL&#8217;s membership rules, land agreements and plans for additional communities \u2014 details the group has largely kept private.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A white separatist group is openly planning a network of whites-only settlements across rural America that aim to withstand legal challenges by operating essentially as private clubs. Why it matters: The communities are launching in the Ozarks, Appalachia and the South as the Trump administration has backed off prosecuting many civil rights cases. They&#8217;re also&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/IuRX7XCwR5ruX1LbQMi3GGKx8wM=\/0x0:1920x1080\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/13\/1783968922717.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}