Anti-fascism exploded into the public spotlight after Donald Trump’s electoral victory in 2016. Spectacular street battles between fascists and anti-fascists in the heart of liberal cities like Berkeley and Portland led to antifa becoming a widely discussed phenomenon and a new bogeyman of the far right. Yet despite their meteoric rise to popular consciousness in the past decade, neither fascism nor anti-fascism came out of nowhere. In the United States, fascists continued to mobilize after World War II in the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan, the Christian far right, and beyond. In turn, antifascists have long fought to disrupt their organizing, in part by drawing on the experience of past generations who fought the rise of fascism in Europe. As the far right spreads across the globe today, it is critical to explore the history of post-war anti-fascism and use it to inform contemporary struggles against fascism.

This panel offers new historical perspectives on the development of fascism and anti-fascism in the United States in the post-war period. Panelists argue that, far from marginal or anachronistic political phenomena, fascism and anti-fascism substantively shaped the development of American politics in the second half of the twentieth century. Christopher Vials opens the conversation by providing an explanatory framework for understanding post-war fascism before turning to a case study of the Christian far right. Anna Duensing then shows how the Black anti-fascist tradition shaped Black organizing and coalition-building in the classical civil rights era of the 1950s-60s. Next, Montse Feu discusses the use of humor in US-based solidarity work to undermine Francisco Franco’s “imperial will” in fascist Spain. Finally, Spencer Beswick explores how the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation contributed to the development of contemporary antifa by situating anti-fascism within a broader revolutionary strategy. Mark Bray, the author of Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook, will provide commentary before the floor is opened to audience discussion and questions.

The importance of this history has only grown more urgent in the wake of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol Building in an attempt to reinstate Donald Trump as president. Given the tumultuous contemporary political situation, we anticipate a broad audience of scholars seeking to understand (and debate) the legacy of post-war fascism and anti-fascism.