A University of Wisconsin-Madison student who once served prison time for setting fires at two predominantly black churches is recruiting on campus for a local chapter of a national pro-white party, enraging students searching for ways to improve race relations.
Daniel Dropik, 33, said frustration over the Black Lives Matter movement's presence on campus and university courses examining white and male privilege led him to start a local chapter of the American Freedom Party. The American Freedom Party is a political party with deep ties to white supremacism, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
Dropik's recruiting comes as minorities have been pushing UW-Madison leaders to better protect them following several incidents targeting black and Jewish students last spring.
"It's become unacceptable," Dropik said. "If white people have problems, they need to be able to organize."
In 2005, Dropik was convicted in federal court of racially-motivated arsons at two predominantly black churches in Milwaukee and Lansing, Michigan. According to court documents, Dropik told investigators he believed a black person had stolen his backpack in a Milwaukee bus terminal and black men beat him up during
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