Why do the US Capitol storming Proud Boys attend New Hanover school board meetings?

The masked men in their yellow and black uniforms stood in the back of the New Hanover County Board of Education Center, arms folded over their chests.

Every so often, they would shout or cheer in response to something said by a board or audience member. Their presence garnered nervous glances and whispers from some in the audience and from others, friendly greetings.  

They are the Proud Boys — part of the same far-right group that helped storm the US Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021, in protest of President Joe Biden’s inauguration. 

To civil rights activists they are a neo-fascist hate group trying to leverage white working-class resentment. The Proud Boys see themselves as "a "fraternity of men who refuse to conform to the politically correct principles found in modern society." The FBI sees it all a whole different way. 

For the past half year, they have attended several public school board meetings and other local government meetings.

Now, as several of their key leaders face prison sentences for their role in the Capitol insurrection, they say that the humbler stage they have taken to push their ideals — local government meetings — is a strategy that's working. 

"Our goals are both macro and micro," a spokesman for the group who identified himself under the pseudonym Johnny Ringo said in an email to the StarNews.

"On a local level concerning the school board we consider the recent lifting of children’s mask mandates to be a victory for the citizens of New Hanover and we were proud to have played a role in this," Ringo wrote.

The role has certainly been disruptive and precedent-breaking at school board meetings, especially as local education officials have wrestled with a host of difficult issues related to the strain the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath placed upon the system. 

Such discord most recently occurred during April's gathering when the Proud Boys came out to support Rocky Jeter Webb, a man who claims his constitutional rights were violated when school board Chairwoman Stephanie Kraybill tried to temper his behavior during a public comment section of a meeting. 

The Proud Boys surrounded Jeter Webb as he called for Kraybill’s resignation as board chair, holding signs with photos of Kraybill on them, reading ‘Stop the LIES, Kraybill! Resign Now.’ 

At that meeting they also placed themselves in the front row, putting them face-to-face with board members, and at one point stood up yelling at Kraybill and the way she was calling up speakers during the public comment session. 

“I called her name about five times,” Kraybill said. 

“No, you did not,” the men yelled back in unison. 

Attempting to regain control of the meeting, Kraybill told them multiple times to “please have a seat” and threatened to have them removed by law enforcement.  

A hate group working locally 

The Proud Boys were named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017, and the organization has tracked their presence in North Carolina and around the south since then. 

The Proud Boys are known for promoting white nationalist and misogynist rhetoric, as well as being anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim, said Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center who has focused on researching the Proud Boys. 

Miller said in the aftermath of the events on Jan. 6, 2021, groups like the Proud Boys have shifted their focus to local platforms because of legal issues many of their top leaders faced and public pressure to back down. 

“That really dovetails with a broader far-right strategy that is emphasizing change at the local level, and making national political issues into things that they want to implement locally,” Miller said. 

Some of those issues include COVID-19 policies, critical race theory and LGBT-inclusive curriculums, all of which have come up as prominent issues in New Hanover County Schools in the last year. 

The goal, Miller said, is to promote an idea that the political left is “unhinged,” and groups like the Proud Boys must step in to restore order. That often manifests through violent confrontations between the Proud Boys and leftist protesters, and is typically filmed and posted online to garner attention from others who identify with the far-right. 

School budget: School board to request funding from county to make district-wide minimum wage $17 an hour

Board of education candidates: School board candidates clash over segregation and school safety

Firearm raffle: Conservative group to raffle off semi-automatic rifle in support of school board candidate

Segregation in NHCS: The latest on the StarNews' investigation

“Their strategy here is to be a force of intimidation to try to silence people who disagree with them in order to either stop the policies they don't want to see your implement others that they do,” Miller said. “The goal is to get people to not speak up, to not attend so that they can dictate what policies look like going forward.” 

Right now, as they begin gathering at more local-level government functions, Miller said it seems there’s a shift happening within the group, moving away from violent confrontations.

But it’s not likely to last: groups like the Proud Boys have a history of violence that ebbs and flows, Miller said. They quickly become highly mobilized, but when they begin facing legal consequences for some of the conflict, they will shift toward less confrontational tactics. 

“They’ll pull back momentarily, but they usually come back,” Miller said.  

The bedrock of Western Civilization

Ringo said in the email to the StarNews the group's goal is to "influence citizens and government officials to return to constitutional norms, which we believe are the bedrock of Western Civilization. We are asking for nothing new, just an adherence to the constitution."

Through that, Ringo said the group has focused on a few issues at school board meetings, including the mask mandate. He said the group considers it a victory that the school board lifted the mask mandate.

He said the group also stands in firm opposition to the district's gender support plan to help students who identify as transgender, and Ringo said that "transgenderisim in youth comes with serious psychological and social pressures." Because of that, he said the Proud Boys will continue to be present at school board meetings.

With protests becoming heightened at school board meetings in general – not just from groups like the Proud Boys – the increased security at the meetings has become obvious. At the May regular board meeting, audience members had to go through a metal detector before they could enter the building, a safety precaution new to the Board of Education Center.

Ringo said while Cape Fear Proud Boys members were not "visibly attending" the most recent board meeting, "that doesn't mean we weren't there." He said the chapter covers a large area and often attends smaller events "in preparation for a larger public presence in the future.

Miller said and residents should always consider their own safety first and foremost, but groups like the Proud Boys shouldn’t stop people from practicing their rights and participating in democracy. 

She said now, the pressure is on public officials to ensure meetings are safe for anyone to attend. 

“People should feel empowered to go and attend public meetings,” she said. “They have every right to be there and hope that local governments and municipalities are taking proper precautions to make sure that everyone in the community can attend these kinds of events and feel safe and not feel intimidated.” 

What next?

The Proud Boys are a force in North Carolina.

Last month the former leader of the state chapter at the time of the Capitol attack, Charles Donohoe, pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers and conspiracy to obstruct Congress.

Donohoe also agreed to cooperate with federal authorities in the cases against fellow Proud Boys defendants including their national leader, Enrique Tarrio, and four other top members. That trial is set to begin in Washington on May 18.

Investigations into the Capitol attack remain ongoing.

While it is FBI policy to "neither confirm nor deny conducting particular investigations" when a spokesperson from the bureau was asked about the presence of Proud Boys at New Hanover school board meetings, they told the StarNews in an email that "we cannot and do not investigate ideology."

"We [the FBI] focus on individuals who commit or intend to commit violence and criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security. Membership in domestic groups is not illegal in and of itself," the email read. "In fact, it is protected by the First Amendment."

Ringo said going forward, those who attend school board meetings can expect to continue seeing the masked men in attendance, continuing to push their agendas on a local level for now.

Reporter Sydney Hoover can be reached at 910-343-2339 or shoover@gannett.com.