# Youth for Western Civilization Youth for Western Civilization (YWC) was a far-right student organization founded by [[Kevin DeAnna]] in 2006 and dissolved around 2012. Incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit and actively organizing on campuses from 2008, it positioned itself as a more radical, identity-focused alternative to mainstream groups like the College Republicans — and functioned, in the assessment of critics and later journalism, as a launching pad for a new generation of white-power activists. ## Mission and Imagery YWC said its mission was "to organize, educate, and train activists dedicated to the revival of Western Civilization," opposing what it called "radical multiculturalism, socialism, and mass immigration" and a "poisonous and bigoted leftist campus climate." Its honorary chairman was former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo. The group's logo — a hand gripping a hammer, said by members to represent Charles Martel — drew criticism for closely resembling a fasces, the bundled-rods symbol associated with Italian fascism. ## Chapters and Activism The group organized on at least seven campuses, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Vanderbilt University, American University, Providence College, and others. Its activities ranged from protesting performances of *The Vagina Monologues* to bringing speakers such as Tom Tancredo, Robert Spencer, and Bay Buchanan to campus. Future neo-Confederate and "Traditionalist Worker Party" organizer Matthew Heimbach founded and led one YWC chapter. The most notorious episode came in April 2009 at UNC-Chapel Hill, where campus police used pepper spray against protesters and a window was smashed near Tancredo as he attempted to speak at a YWC event opposing in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants; the university's leadership later apologized to Tancredo. ## Pipeline to the Alt-Right YWC's lasting significance lies in the people and ideas it incubated. The group boosted the profile of [[Richard Spencer]] by inviting him to speak at Vanderbilt in 2010 and Rhodes College in 2011, helping to connect older paleoconservative networks with the emerging online alt-right. Founder DeAnna went on to become one of the movement's most prolific pseudonymous propagandists (as "Gregory Hood" and "James Kirkpatrick"), making YWC an early node in the institutional history of the [[Alt-Right]]. The Southern Poverty Law Center later described DeAnna as having "orchestrated the alt-right's approach to conservative institutions" — a strategy of [[Entryism]] that YWC prefigured. ## See Also - [[Kevin DeAnna]] — founder and leader throughout its existence - [[Leadership Institute]] — DeAnna's employer when he founded YWC - [[Richard Spencer]] — promoted by YWC speaking invitations - [[Alt-Right]] — the movement YWC helped seed