The rise of whites-only "heritage communities"

• They're also surfacing at a time when the nation is becoming increasingly diverse, and as the racist "great replacement theory" has become a staple of far-right politics in recent years.

The big picture: For nearly three years, state and federal authorities have largely watched from the sidelines as the separatist group Return to the Land (RTTL) unveiled plans and took applications for residents.

• Those plans amount to intentionally challenging the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which banned discrimination in housing. They've been inspired partly by recent decisions by the conservative-led U.S. Supreme Court and the Trump administration's reversal of much of President Lyndon Johnson's civil rights legacy.

Catch up quick: RTTL established a 160-acre, whites-only community near Ravenden, Ark., in late 2023.

• Using an AI-generated corporate framework discovered on 4chan, the founders structured the community as a "private membership association" linked to a for-profit LLC, according to court documents.
• They boast that this dual structure creates a loophole that allows them to bypass requirements of the Fair Housing Act and explicitly filter their neighbors by race and religion.
• The group said work has begun on a second site in Arkansas, and it's planning more projects in the Ozarks, the South and Appalachia.

Zoom in: RTTL's website states that it "help[s] groups of our members form European heritage communities."

• It seeks to create "a decentralized movement" and aims "to create many independent and fully functioning parallel societies."
• The group also helps people and groups with "common ancestry" purchase rural land.

By the numbers: About 40 people, including roughly a dozen home-schooled children, now live in the compound in Ravenden on land purchased for $237,000.

• An application fee for the private membership association costs $25, after which members undergo background checks and share information about their ethnic background.
• RTTL had raised more than $200,000 as of May 2026, including $105,158 for additional chapters and $94,401 for legal-framework research, court records show.

In interviews with media outlets and alt-right leaning influencers, RTTL founder Eric Orwoll has referenced Hitler, said the community had a "pretty good radar" for excluding Jews and called himself a "white identitarian."

• "You're going to get Hitler 2.0 when you deserve him. He's not just going to show up to a people that aren't putting in the work themselves. We have to put in that work," Orwoll said in a video posted on X.
• RTTL and its lawyer did not respond to Axios' request for comment.

Yes, but: RTTL is facing a federal lawsuit after a practicing Christian with Russian-Jewish ancestry applied to purchase property at the group's whites-only settlement near Ravenden and was rejected after disclosing her heritage, her marriage to a Black man and her biracial children.

• The lawsuit alleges that RTTL's founders want to illegally build small whites-only neighborhoods and scale them quickly.
• Founders also want to develop settlements of up to 50,000 people and eventually "cities of thousands," the suit alleges.

Between the lines: RTTL's attempt to exploit a conservative shift in the judiciary is weighed down by a highly flawed legal defense and longstanding federal statutes, Stacy Seicshnaydre, a Tulane University Law School professor, tells Axios.

• Seicshnaydre said the Civil Rights Act of 1866 is the group's most formidable legal hurdle, noting that the Reconstruction-era statute has zero exemptions and prohibits all racial and cultural discrimination. Much of the language of that law is reflected in the 14th Amendment.
• "I would be very surprised to see the court take this step because it would be quite a radical one, and would unravel just very fundamental principles of property rights and inclusion," Seicshnaydre said.

What they're saying: "We abhor racism, and it has no place in our society," Jeff LeMaster, a spokesperson for Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, told Axios in a statement.

• "Regarding Return to the Land, we began looking into the development after receiving complaints last year. We have no updates we can share at this time."

The U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to Axios.

What we're watching: If the federal lawsuit reaches the discovery phase, it could expose RTTL's membership rules, land agreements and plans for additional communities — details the group has largely kept private.