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American Eugenics Party
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Dates of existence
[196-]-[197-]
History
The American Eugenics Party (AEP) was founded in Los Angeles, California in the 1960s and held meetings in Long Beach and Santa Barbara. It was a racist right-wing organization that used the pseudo-scientific belief of Eugenics to justify its own beliefs and political platform. Members of the party included Samuel Andrisani, who was the party's primary spokesperson and Education Manager, as well as John S. Vanders who was the party's Public Relations Manager. Robert Henderon was the party's chairman of the race relations committee. Samuel Andrisani was born in Lackawana, N.Y. ca. 1930 and served in the Army Medical Corps. In 1965 he was the owner of Trailhider Manufacturing Co., a business that made animal accessories. Although he held a master's degree in education, he stated that he wasn't teaching as he felt the education system needed reform.
Tenets of the party's platform included the importance of racial purity, anti-immigration legislation, the intention to unite all "Caucasian stocks" to fight against the "non-Caucasian genetic threat", limiting government positions to those who pass an AEP test, "incentive economics", limited roles for women, neutrality on the concept of God, access to education based on "hereditary mental ability", limiting media on "dysgenic acts", removing "white defectives" (White people who are not eugenicists) from political positions, eliminating violence-type sports such as boxing, enacting anti-vice laws, enacting environmental legislation, and ensuring only "eugenic marriages" (marriages in which the couple are matched in terms of race, intellect, etc.).
Samuel Andrisani ran under the American Eugenics Party banner in the 1965 L.A. board of Education, Office number 2, election. His campaign speech indicated that crime, poverty, drop-outs and other social problems are hereditary and advocated that all Black people be "sent back to Africa". His vision for the school district was that the "unequal not be regarded as equal, honest and disclosed grades, that uncensored test information as to race and socio-economic status is a public right, graded diplomas, that the problem of overcrowded classrooms be solved by ''offspring control," and that more money should be spent on gifted children and less on the non-gifted." In the speech, Samuel also distanced the AEP from the Nazis by stating that the AEP was accepting of Jewish People. He received 2 votes in the election. Also in 1965, Albert Andrisani (brother of Samuel) appeared on KTTV's Louis Lomax show to discuss eugenics.
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Created by JB Nov. 2025.
Language(s)
- English