[2]: 10  He denied the Holocaust and believed that Martin Luther King Jr. was a tool for Jewish communists desiring to rule the white community.

His parents divorced when Rockwell was six years old, and for the rest of his youth he divided his time between his mother in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and his father in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

[8] After the war ended, Rockwell worked as a sign painter out of a small shop on land owned by his father in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

[2][6] Because families were not permitted to be with American service personnel stationed there, his wife and children stayed with her mother in Barrington, Rhode Island.

[12] On July 29, 1958, Rockwell demonstrated in front of the White House in an anti-war protest against President Dwight D. Eisenhower's decision to send peacekeeping troops to the Middle East, known as Operation Blue Bat.

[15] In March 1959, Rockwell founded the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists (WUFENS), a name selected to denote opposition to state ownership of property.

[17] In order to attract media attention, Rockwell held a rally on April 3, 1960, on the National Mall, where he addressed the crowd with a two-hour speech.

Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. refused to grant him a permit to speak, and he appealed that decision to the New York Supreme Court.

Rockwell, with the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union, eventually won a permit, but it was long after the date of the planned event.

[19] On January 15, 1961, Rockwell and a fellow Nazi Party member attempted to picket the local premiere of the film Exodus at the Saxon Theatre in Downtown Boston on Tremont Street while staying at the Hotel Touraine.

[22] In the summer of 1966, Rockwell led a counter-demonstration against King's attempt to bring an end to de facto segregation in the white Chicago suburb of Cicero, Illinois.

[24] In the spring of 1966, the party began publication of several pamphlets and books, including National Socialist World edited by William Luther Pierce,[2] writings by Rockwell, the periodical Stormtrooper Magazine (originally National Socialist Bulletin), and a propaganda comic book, Here Comes Whiteman!, where the title superhero character battles enemies modeled after racist stereotypes.

[25] Rockwell established his "Stormtrooper Barracks" in a two-story farmhouse at 6150 Wilson Boulevard in the Dominion Hills Historic District.

After Rockwell's death, his successor Matthias Koehl relocated the headquarters to 2507 North Franklin Road in Clarendon, Arlington, Virginia.

[26] The small building, often misidentified today as Rockwell's former headquarters, is now the Sweet Science Coffee shop,[27] formerly The Java Shack.

The label released several singles promoting racist and white supremacist beliefs by such bands as Odis Cochran and the Three Bigots and the Coon Hunters.

Rockwell worked with Black separatist leaders who shared his goal of racial segregation, such as Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X.

[39] In January 1962, Rockwell wrote to his followers that Elijah Muhammad:[3]has gathered millions of the dirty, immoral, drunken, filthy-mouthed, lazy and repulsive people sneeringly called 'niggers' and inspired them to the point where they are clean, sober, honest, hard working, dignified, dedicated and admirable human beings in spite of their color ... Muhammad knows that mixing is a Jewish fraud and leads only to aggravation of the problems that it is supposed to solve ...

I have talked to the Muslim leaders and am certain that a workable plan for separation of the races could be effected to the satisfaction of all concerned—except the Communist-Jew agitators.

He referred to Muhammad as "The Black People's Hitler" and donated $20 (worth about $212 in 2024) to the Nation of Islam at their "Freedom Rally" event on June 25, 1961, at Uline Arena in Washington where he and ten ANP members attended a speech by Malcolm X.

[40] Rockwell gave a speech to a crowd of 12,000 at a Black Muslim event in the International Amphitheater in Chicago, with Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X, on February 25, 1962.

[2][40] Inspired by Black Muslims' use of religion to mobilize people, Rockwell sought to collaborate with Christian Identity groups.

In an April 1966 interview for Playboy conducted by journalist Alex Haley, Rockwell stated, "I don't believe for one minute that any 6,000,000 Jews were exterminated by Hitler.

On August 27, an NSWPP spokesman reported that federal officials had approved a military burial at Culpeper National Cemetery, Rockwell being an honorably discharged veteran.

[11][citation needed] Rockwell was a source of inspiration for David Duke, who openly espoused neo-Nazi sentiments when he was young.

As a student in high school, when he learned that Rockwell was murdered, Duke reportedly said "The greatest American who ever lived has been shot down and killed.

"[53] The Twilight Zone episode "He's Alive" features a character named Peter Vollmer who leads a Neo-Nazi movement only to be visited by the spirit of Adolf Hitler.

For its 1972 album Not Insane or Anything You Want To, The Firesign Theatre created a fictional presidential candidate, George Papoon, running on the equally fictional ticket, the Natural Surrealist Light Peoples Party, the name taken as an apparent parody of Rockwell's own group, the National Socialist White Peoples Party.

[55] Marlon Brando portrayed Rockwell in the television miniseries Roots: The Next Generations and he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his performance.

[56]: 2 In the third season of the post-World War II alternate history television show The Man in the High Castle, David Furr portrayed Rockwell as the Reichsmarschall of North America.