Creative Commons
Chip Berlet
Nearly fifty years ago, in the early 1970s, John Foster Berlet—better known as “Chip”—learned a foundational lesson that he carried into his work as a writer, researcher, educator, and activist. He was living in the Chicago neighborhood of Marquette Park and, as Black families began to move into the area, their homes were being firebombed. Worse, the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party were marching through the streets to demand that “Marquette stay white.”
“We knew that we needed to work to make it possible for Black people, Black parents, to sleep through the night in their homes. We had to follow their lead so that children would not be immolated in their beds.”
Berlet, like others, opposed this bigotry, organizing counter marches and other pro-integration actions. “We started out saying ‘Smash the Klan,’ ” Berlet tells The Progressive. But after meeting with local Black pastors and hearing them talk about the needs of the new residents, the coalition he was a part of changed course.
“The ministers explained that every night the newly arrived families would designate one parent to stay awake in case of a firebombing so they could quickly get themselves and their children out of harm’s way,” Berlet recalls. “When we understood this point of view, we knew that we needed to work to make it possible for Black people, Black parents, to sleep through the night in their homes. We had to follow their lead so that children would not be immolated in their beds.”
Berlet calls the end result of this struggle a victory: “We pushed the neo-Nazis out of Marquette Park,” he says, “and allowed for a relatively peaceful community transition, from a white population to a predominantly Black and Latino one.”
Looking back, he says the lesson it brought home—that successful community organizing requires listening to those who are directly impacted by what is happening around them—became his calling.
Another important lesson followed, when, in 1976, Berlet took a job as a paralegal at the National Lawyers Guild. His work, along with that of other NLG staffers, revealed that there was a network of rightwing groups trading information about liberal organizing efforts and organizations. The data, he says, ended up in the Church League of America library.
“The League, which existed from 1937 to 1984, was made up of people who believed that there was an imminent radical plot, arranged by Moscow, to turn the U.S. into a Soviet republic,” Berlet says. “Their work dovetailed with that of the John Birch Society.”
“People on the right may be misguided, but they’re just as smart, articulate, and sophisticated as people on the left.”
Though these suspicions sounded laughable, an NLG investigation revealed the seriousness of the threat and exposed the near-constant surveillance of the Guild that began in 1940 and lasted through the mid-1970s. What’s more, a 1977 lawsuit filed by the NLG against the National Security Agency, the CIA, the FBI, and the U.S. military eventually forced the release of 300,000 pages of once-confidential documents that chronicled the efforts of a fifteen-year counterintelligence program—known as COINTELPRO—that harassed, infiltrated, and sabotaged groups that the government deemed subversive, including the American Indian Movement, the Black Panther Party, the Communist Party, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Socialist Workers Party.
As horrible as this was, it taught Berlet something else: “People on the right may be misguided, but they’re just as smart, articulate, and sophisticated as people on the left,” he says. “They are not bumbling idiots, or fools, and are as skilled as any of us.”
Recognizing this, Berlet continues, is fundamental to countering the right, since condescension rarely goes unnoticed in organizing efforts or discussions. But, he adds, that does not mean that progressives should tread lightly or avoid heated debates. Instead, exposing the fallacies of the right is imperative if democracy is to be sustained. This is especially critical, he adds, in today’s political milieu of anti-vax, anti-mask, and anti-critical race theory misinformation campaigns.
Berlet makes clear that he cares deeply about these incursions. Nonetheless, he recently retired, moving aside to let others carry on the mission that he and colleague Jean Hardisty launched in 1981 when they created Midwest Research—now called Political Research Associates—to study the U.S. rightwing. Though Hardesty died in 2015, their groundbreaking work continues to influence journalists, scholars, and community activists who not only monitor the right, but who are also working to minimize its impact in communities throughout the country.
Some of those Berlet has influenced recently came together in homage to him. The result, Exposing the Right and Fighting for Democracy, was published by Routledge in late 2021. The book focuses on both Berlet’s personal attributes and his intellectual contributions and strategic thinking.
But it is not a hagiography. While Berlet is presented as a true mensch—a man with a passion for intellectual honesty and a commitment to determining what makes his opponents tick—he also comes across as fully human.
At the same time, as the author of two books, dozens of research studies, and countless articles (many of them published in The Progressive), Berlet is a stand-out role model for a diverse array of activists and scholars. Their tributes make Exposing the Right and Fighting for Democracy an inspiring read and an engaging look at a life well lived.
Matthew N. Lyons, who co-authored Right-Wing Populism in America with Berlet, calls him gracious, generous, and respectful. (Lyons wrote an article on the rise of the far right in The Progressive last spring.) Likewise, Pam Chamberlain, one of the book’s editors and a former colleague at Political Research Associates, considers Berlet to have been far ahead of his time, an intersectional thinker who always used “the lenses of race, class, gender, and sexuality to examine the right.”
For his part, Berlet says that he is proud of his career and the anthology that celebrates his achievements: “Of course, I’m flattered, but the book makes me out to be more helpful than I am,” he laughs. “Still, it’s lovely.”