Maine town manager under fire for promoting white separatism, criticizing Islam

Jackman Town Manager Tom Kawczynski poses in front of his flag for his New Albion racial segregationist group on his Facebook page.

The town manager of a small northern Maine community is under fire for promoting white separatist views and making comments critical of Islam, it was reported Saturday.

Jackman Town manager Thomas Kawczynksi, 37, says he is the leader of New Albion, a racial segregationist movement that wants to preserve the white majority of northern New England and Atlantic Canada.

“I am not a white supremacist. I am not a racist,” Kawczynski told the Portland Press Herald. “What gets me in trouble sometimes is I am a white person who is not ashamed to be white.”

He told the paper he opposed Islam because it was “not compatible with Western culture.”

The paper interviewed the pastor of First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church in Portland who said that what Kawczynski was doing was awful.

“He’s going against everything that is American and what we stand for,” the Rev. Christinia Sillari said. “He needs to be stopped.”

“Wow,” American Civil Liberties Union of Maine legal director Zachary Heiden said in The Bangor Daily News, calling Kawczynski's views “shockingly racist.”

The Bangor Daily News reported Friday that Kawczynski frequently shared his political views on the far-right website GAB and his personal Facebook page.

The paper quoted Kawczynski as calling Islam “the scourge of Western civilization.”

Kawczynski told the paper he doesn't run Jackman town affairs in a way that discriminates against anyone. The town, near the Canadian border, has 860 residents.

In 2016, he served as town chair for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in a town in New Hampshire, the paper reported.

Two members of the Jackman Board of Selectmen told Maine Public Radio they were unaware of Kawczynksi's viewpoints.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.