Anti-Racist Action

Anti-Racist Action (ARA), also known as the Anti-Racist Action Network, is a decentralized network of militant far-left political cells in the United States and Canada. The ARA network originated in the late 1980s to engage in direct action, including political violence and doxxing against rival political organizations on the hard right, mainly violent groups of neo-Nazi skinheads, to dissuade them from further involvement in political activities. Anti-Racist Action described such groups as racist or fascist, or both. Most ARA members have been anarchists, but some have been Trotskyists and Maoists.

The network originated among the hardcore punk skinhead scene in Minnesota among a group known as the Minneapolis Baldies which had been founded in 1987. The network grew and spread throughout North America. The Midwestern United States, particularly the cities of Minneapolis, Chicago and Columbus, were the main hotspot for activity, but notable chapters existed in Portland, Los Angeles, Toronto and elsewhere.

In the early 1990s, the Anti-Racist Action Network began to organize an annual conference, attended by representatives of the official chapters, along with prospective members. These events often feature guest speakers and hardcore punk bands. In the late 1990s, the network was affiliated with a short-lived international grouping which called itself the Militant Anti-Fascist Network and consisted of mostly Europe-based groups such as the UK-based Anti-Fascist Action and various German Antifa factions among others.

Politically, the network has always stated that anti-racism and anti-fascism are its main goals, adopting a non-sectarian approach to party affiliation for chapter members, and there is no pre-requisite to adhere to any particular party line outside of the five "Points of Unity".

Anti-Racist Action originated from the hardcore punk subculture in the United States at Minneapolis, Minnesota, among suburban mostly White American teenagers during the late 1980s. The wider punk subculture had flirted with extreme political symbolism, as a form of "shock value" from its early days, including anarchist, communist and nazi symbols, though many did not take this seriously. Eventually some bands such as Crass in the United Kingdom began to more seriously integrate an anarcho-communist political ideology into their music and associated anarcho-punk subculture.

This spread to the United States and had a strong influence on the Minneapolis hardcore scene. Some of the people involved in this scene created a skinhead street gang, inspired by Nick Knight's book Skinhead, known as the Minneapolis Baldies. The Baldies, who formed in 1986 and regarded themselves as leftist, anti-racist skinheads, frequently engaged in political violence with rival far-right skinheads in Uptown.

The Baldies were associated with bands such as Blind Approach, while their rivals from the East Side, the White Knights, were associated with Mass Corruption. According to Kieran Knutson, they organized a demonstration with the University of Minnesota Black Law Student Association, including Keith Ellison who later became the Democratic Party's Attorney General of Minnesota.

In May 1989, Chicago skinheads formed their own Anti-Racist Action (ARA). Chicago ARA activists fought with the neo-Nazi skinheads of Chicago Area SkinHeads (CASH). A group called Skinheads of Chicago (SHOC) consisted mostly of black skinheads and adhered to left-wing and black power politics. In 1989, some of them featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, opposing CASH who were guests.