Elton Hall (left) at a neo-Nazi BBQ last year; note his pal's affection for the neo-Nazi punk rock band Skrewdriver.
Alter kocker anti-immigrant activist Elton Hall, 74, a persistent protester of the Macehualli Work Center and a fixture at other anti-immigrant protests, was struck and injured Saturday morning when two vehicles collided at the intersection of 25th Street and Bell. According to Phoenix police, Bernardino Diaz Conde was making an illegal left-hand turn onto 25th from Bell, when he struck an eastbound vehicle being driven by Robin Govert. Govert's vehicle slid out of control, went up on the sidewalk, and hit Hall, who was standing near the curb.
Hall's injuries were not life-threatening, though an ambulance was called and he was taken to Paradise Valley Hospital. A spokesperson for the hospital listed him as being in stable condition. Speculation from some at the scene was that Hall might have broken a leg or a hip, but PV Hospital declined to verify the exact nature of Hall's injuries.
This sort of accident may have been just a matter of time. On each occasion I've paid a visit to Macehualli, Hall was invariably standing right next to the curb on Bell with some sign warning of the evils of immigration. And Bell's a very busy roadway, to say the least.
No doubt the nativists protesting Macehualli on a nearly daily basis now will make much of the fact that Conde was the driver at fault, and did not have a driver's license on him. Conde was cited and his car impounded, according to the PHX PD. The nativists up at Macehualli love when something like this happens. Who knows, maybe United for a Sovereign America, the extremist group run by former Kia-peddler Rusty Childress, will award Hall a month of free breakfasts at Denny's for taking one for the team. Childress' U.S.A. is promoting the Macehualli protests, you see.
Elton Hall, standing a little too close to the road for comfort.
Why am I bothering with the fact this old coot got hit by a car? Well, Hall just happens to be an iconic AZ neo-Nazi from back in the day. And he remains active in local white supremacist circles. Local National Socialist Movement organizer Scott Hume often lauded Hall on his now-defunct "Sacred Order" Yahoo group. And there were photos of Hall at an NSM BBQ organized by Hume last year, which hailed Hall as one of George Lincoln Rockwell's original stormtroopers.
Hall may appear to be some kindly ol' grampa, but he's been in the neo-Nazi movement for so long that he's actually mentioned in two academic studies about white supremacists in America.
In the Duke University Press' Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism, by Mattias Gardell, pg. 261, Hall is mentioned in reference to a far-right-winger by the name of Valgard Murray:
"Active in the national socialist wing of the radical right, Murray in the late 1960s learned about Odinism through Elton Hall, then Arizona organizer of the American Nazi Party."
Hall's also mentioned in the study, The Cultic Milieu: Oppositional Subcultures in an Age of Globalization, by Jeffrey Kaplan and Heléne Lööw, (AltaMira Press) on page 172:
"In Rockwell's American Nazi Party (ANP), Arizona organizer Elton Hall in vain tried to move the ANP toward a more class-based white worker direction and to get it engaged in union organizing."
I've confronted Hall more than once about his past. He answers to his name for me, but that's about it. Otherwise, he just offers a coy little smile. He's been less coy towards Salvador Reza, the operator of the Macehualli Work Center. Reza says Hall's called him and the day-laborers at the center "wetbacks" in the past. This, despite the fact Reza's an American citizen who's served in the armed forces.
Hall is the kind of far-right crackpot that the U.S.A-organized protests at Macehualli continue to attract. I don't know if Hall's an actual "member" of U.S.A., but they seem to get along fine with him. Anti-Hispanic Hispanic Anna Gaines of You Don't Speak for Me (a frequenter of U.S.A. events) often stood side-by-side with Hall on the very section of sidewalk where the car struck him Saturday. I didn't see her around, however, on the day of the accident.
Prejudiced powwow: Anti-immigrant fanatic Buffalo Rick's seated to the left, Elton Hall's seated to the far right, don't-know-who's behind Rick.
They're a hostile, pistol-packin' little crew. Nearly every time I walk through their encampment on the outside of Macehualli, I'm met with verbal abuse and veiled threats. Once in a blue one, I'll find someone in the nativist camp I can have a civil confab with, but that's rare. As evidence, check out this excellent video up at Barriozona.com of Macehualli's 5th Anniversary. At one point, you can see Hall in a crowd of people shouting "Bullshit!" at the folks celebrating. Witness that all of the hatred is on the nativist side of that fence.
(Where Hall's standing in the video is about a block from where he was struck -- there are usually xenophobes stationed in both areas. Reza told me that he and others prayed openly for Hall after he was hit, and were taunted for doing so by the nativists.)
I did ask Elton Hall's compadres if they knew that he was a famous neo-Nazi. They said I was lying, but the pics don't lie. And I suspect that even if they knew of his background, they'd just shrug it off.
One protester did mention that Hall was a veteran. I don't know if this is true. However, I do know that American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell served with distinction during WWII. Does that lessen his influence as one of the premier American bigots of his time? Not at all.
