1978: Neo-Nazi Group Founder Begins White Supremacist Church

William Pierce, the founder of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974) and the author of the inflammatory and highly influential white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978), begins holding weekly meetings of the Cosmotheist Community Church (CCC), a religion of his own creation that promotes white supremacy. Pierce, who was turned down by the IRS in his 1977 attempts to persuade it to classify the Alliance as a tax-exempt “educational” organization, will succeed in getting the IRS to classify the CCC as a religious tax-exempt organization in 1983, though that status will be largely revoked in 1986. [Center for New Community, 8/2002 ]