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AN ARKANSAS GROUP’S EFFORT TO BUILD A WHITE ETHNOSTATE FORMS PART
OF A WIDER US MOVEMENT INSPIRED BY WHITE SUPREMACY  
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Paul J. Becker
September 5, 2025
The Conversation
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_ The group, which describes itself as a “private membership
association” that helps groups form “European heritage
communities,” plans to build four more sites, including another
location in the Ozarks and two in Appalachia. _

The group Return to the Land wants to build several whites-only sites
in Arkansas and Appalachia.  , brazzo/iStock/Getty Images Plus

 

In October 2023, a group calling itself Return to the Land established
its first “Whites only community
[[link removed]]” in the
Ozark Mountains of Arkansas
[[link removed]].
They followed that with a second enclave nearby in 2025.

The group, which describes itself as a “private membership
association [[link removed]]” that helps
groups form “European heritage communities,” plans to build four
more sites [[link removed]], including another
location in the Ozarks and two in Appalachia.

Return to the Land believes that by calling themselves a private
membership association they can create a white ethnostate
[[link removed]] – a type of state in
which residence is limited to white people – and legally exclude
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people based on race, religion and sexual orientation.

If you read the words of Eric Orwoll, the group’s co-founder, its
mission is clear
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“You want a white nation? Build a white town … it can be done.
We’re doing it.”

As a scholar of right-wing extremism
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I have examined several groups calling for a white homeland in
America. The creation of a white ethnostate is often seen as an
ultimate goal of such white nationalism
[[link removed]],
which argues that white people form part of a genetically and
culturally superior race deserving of protection and preservation.
While Return to the Land doesn’t identify as white nationalists,
their statements often align with the ideology.

White ethnostates, big and small

One of the best-known plans for a white ethnostate is the Northwest
Imperative
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popularized by white nationalists during the 1970s and ’80s. The
plan involved certain citizens taking 10% of the United States – the
states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana – and
excluding all nonwhite people from living there.

Proponents of the plan argued that these states were already majority
white and contained large tracts of undeveloped land, making the
territory ideal for white-only settlement. High-profile extremists of
the time such as Richard Butler
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Robert Mathews
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and David Lane
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supported the plan.

Still today, groups such as the Northwest Front
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a white nationalist group founded in 2009 and located in the Pacific
Northwest, continue to promote variations of this idea.

While the Pacific Northwest has a long history with right-wing
extremist organizing
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the proponents of whites-only communities have also targeted areas of
the Northeast as possible locations for a white ethnostate.

In 2018, for example, Tom Kawczynski, town manager of Jackman, Maine,
was fired when his views came to light
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including views that have been characterized as “pro-white
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[A man dressed in a blue shirt and white baseball cap stands in front
of a wood house.]
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White supremacist Craig Cobb stands in an empty lot he owns in Leith,
N.D., on Aug. 26, 2013. Cobb tried unsuccessfully to turn the town
into an all-white enclave. AP Photo/Kevin Cederstrom

More recently, in 2023, the People’s Initiative of New England
[[link removed]],
a splinter group of the neo-Nazi organization National Socialist
Club-131 [[link removed]],
introduced themselves on the online platform Substack. There, the
group laid out its goal of establishing the six states of New England
– Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and
Vermont – as white-only.

The goal of gaining control of multiple states is unrealistic, of
course, at least peacefully. Therefore, a popular alternative, along
the lines of Return to the Land’s actions, is to establish smaller
all-white communities.

In 2013, media outlets reported
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that neo-Nazi Craig Cobb
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buying land in the small town of Leith, North Dakota, to build a white
nationalist community. The town rallied to oppose this attempt
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Later that year, Cobb was charged with seven felonies
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related to confronting residents with a gun. He was sentenced to
probation for four years and deeded the property back to the town
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in 2014.

And in 2021, leaked Telegram chats
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revealed that Christopher Pohlhaus
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a former U.S. Marine and founder of the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe
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whites-only community in Springfield, Maine. Pohlhaus was developing a
military training facility as part of these efforts when media
coverage led him to sell the property and move out of state
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The danger of a white ethnostate

These various attempts to develop a white ethnostate are not simply
individual, isolated cases. They form part of a larger movement toward
achieving white nationalism
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A major part of white nationalism today is focused on anti-immigrant
hatred. That has spurred major acts of extreme violence such as the
2019 murders of 23 people
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in El Paso, Texas, the majority of whom were Hispanic.

[A woman dressed in a black dress speaks outdoors in front of a
podium.]
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U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., with Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y.,
speaks about a resolution condemning the great replacement theory in
Washington, D.C., on June 8, 2022. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

The “great replacement theory
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a conspiracy theory popular among white nationalists, argues that
various policies are leading to the destruction of the white race.
This theory inspired the 2022 mass killing
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of 10 Black Americans in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

The shooter selected the supermarket because of its location in a
predominantly Black neighborhood
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and left behind a white supremacy manifesto
[[link removed]].

Communities across the U.S. have successfully resisted the
establishment of white ethnostates.

The residents of Leith, North Dakota, did this by creating a website
[[link removed]] informing people about
what was happening in their community. Public outcry
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also met Pohlhaus in Maine
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As for Return to the Land, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said
in July 2025 that his office is reviewing the group’s actions
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and whether they violate the law.

“Racism has no place in a free society,” he said, “but from a
legal perspective, we have not seen anything that would indicate any
state or federal laws have been broken.”[The Conversation]

Paul J. Becker
[[link removed]], Associate
Professor of Sociology, _University of Dayton
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This article is republished from The Conversation
[[link removed]] under a Creative Commons license. Read
the original article
[[link removed]].

* Racism
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* segregation
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* Housing
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* white nationalism
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* right wing extremism
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