William Luther Pierce (11 September 1933 – 23 July 2002) was an American white supremacist and neo-Nazi author who was best-known for his 1978 book The Turner Diaries, which reinvigorated the faltering white nationalist movement in the years following the Civil Rights movement.
Biography[]
William Luther Pierce was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1933, a descendant of Thomas H. Watts. He worked as an assistant professor of physics at Oregon State University from 1962 to 1965 and became a researcher for Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut, and, in 1966, he moved to Washington DC and became an associate of the American Nazi Party. In 1978, he wrote The Turner Diaries to unite the faltering white supremacist movement, hoping that a passionate work of fiction would bring neo-fascists together. His book sold 500,000 copies in the following years and led to the boom of white supremacist movements during the 1980s, gaining tens of thousands of members. Pierce himself founded the National Alliance party, which became very wealthy due to a high membership count. Pierce settled in West Virginia and hosted the weekly American Dissident Voices show, published the internal newsletter National Alliance Bulletin, and published National Vanguard magazine. He died in 2002.