Community calls for Port of Coos Bay to to cut ties with white nationalists
For months, community members in the small, coastal town of Coos Bay, Oregon have been voicing their concerns about a prominent local figure who was identified as an active leader in the neo-Nazi movement.
In records and accounts published online, Michael “Whit” Whitworth Gantenbein, owner of Whit Industries, was found to have:
Praised Hitler and used other anti-Jewish and anti-Black rhetoric.
Used discriminatory hiring practices at his company to encourage and support other white nationalists and neo-Nazis to move to the Coos Bay community.
Stated that he intends to continue his racist hiring practices, and ultimately hopes to recruit and plant fellow white nationalists into local elected leadership.
Whit has received nearly $300,000 in contract work from public entities in Southern Oregon over the last decade. Recently, Whit indicated plans to take over more of the infrastructure that would increase his ability to control important port functions and services in the Port of Coos Bay, a key driver of the local economy.
Community members took swift action and brought concerns to public meetings as soon as evidence surfaced that Whit’s business interests are intimately linked to his racist organizing. Their concerns alarmed community organizations, Rogue Climate and South Coast Equity Coalition, who then reached out to us.
Western States Center was glad to add our support and rapid response capacity to make sure they were being heard and bring press attention to the issue.
Local partners led the work of activating a broad coalition who submitted the letter below to Port of Coos Bay officials. While the work isn’t over, their courageous effort has exposed the threat and is effectively putting pressure on local elected officials to stop allocating public funding to Whit.
Read the full story by Investigate Northwest, also featured on OPB, and the full text of our letter below.
Letter to Port Board of Commissioners, Oregon International Port of Coos Bay
December 5, 2024
Port Board of Commissioners
Oregon International Port of Coos Bay
125 W. Central Ave, Suite 200
Coos Bay OR 97420
Dear Port Board of Commissioners,
Thank you for your essential work safeguarding a critical piece of Oregon infrastructure that is important both to our community and to our nation. We welcome the steps that the Port Commission took at its November meeting to pass the Port of Coos Bay’s first-ever Title VI nondiscrimination policy.
We write out of concern about the recent news that Michael Whitworth Gantenbein is currently planning to purchase a company called Giddings Boatworks, which controls significant portions of port infrastructure at the Charleston Marina in Coos Bay. The Port Board of Commissioners would be in the position of determining whether to extend an important lease to Giddings Boatworks under Gantenbein’s ownership, giving him control over approximately $40 million of critical port infrastructure such as managing the Charleston Shipyard. By declining to lease Giddings Boatworks to Whit Industries, the Port of Coos Bay can invest into real solutions such as workforce development to support the Charleston fishing community, as well as building and supporting local expertise that ensures the Port of Coos Bay is not dependent on a single company for essential services and infrastructure.
For months, local online open-source researchers have documented what they allege is Gantenbein’s involvement in the neo-Nazi movement and White Lives Matter group. This includes:
Michael Whit Gantenbein’s work truck, associated with Whit Industries, has been identified at racist White Lives Matter banner drops. These are instances of white nationalists displaying racist messages on banners across major highway overpasses.
On social media, images show White Lives Matter members entering Gantenbein’s work truck.
These banner drops have displayed phrases such as “Make White Babies” and “Stop White Genocide,” common phrases used to promote the narrative that the white population is declining. These messages are rooted in the false belief that white people are being replaced through immigration and interracial relationships, echoing the dangerous “great replacement” conspiracy theory that has driven multiple instances of hate violence and mass shootings.
In archived voice recordings from a White Lives Matter chat group on Telegram, which are available to the Port Commission for review, Gantenbein (using the nickname “Whit”) allegedly encourages his audience to use derogatory terms like n***er and f****t, telling followers they should try to normalize these phrases.
In these same recordings, white nationalists discuss conversations with “Whit” about offers to house and employ other members of the white nationalist movement in Coos Bay, as well as plans to seek positions as “mayor or city council” in order to build political power for their racist movement.
Further voice recordings include “Whit” clearly identifying himself by describing in detail a building and location that is closely associated with his business.
The only rebuttal of this evidence appears to address a single social media post about one lunch, upon which we are not basing our assessment. Furthermore, we’re glad to live in a country and community where people freely express a broad range of views and in which our leaders work together to benefit us all despite their differences, including when it comes to economic development at the Port of Coos Bay. Gantenbein’s attempts to connect his White Lives Matter organizing to traditional values held by many in our community are insulting and inaccurate, and we encourage all people in Coos Bay to reject this comparison regardless of their political views. As the Port of Coos Bay continues to seek significant state and federal funding, it is critical that the contractors and business partners of the Port have the best intentions in providing services to our whole community, not perpetuating discriminatory actions and business practices.
Given these documented facts, we are concerned that approval of this lease may cause devastating and irreversible negative impacts on the Port operations, the Coos Bay community, and Oregon as a whole:
By his own admission, Gantenbein has apparently used hiring practices at his company to encourage and support other white nationalists and neo-Nazis to move to the Coos Bay community. White nationalists often seek a physical base of operations from which they can build political power, and this lease would offer Gantenbein just that opportunity to continue his political agitation for an exclusionary white nationalist vision of our community’s future. Moreover, by placing important port functions and services in the hands of someone who does not have the best interests of our whole community at heart, the Port would risk encouraging our fishing and boating communities to do business with a company that may well engage in discriminatory practices in hiring and in serving customers.
The boats that are repaired at the Charleston Marina and Shipyard represent major business and personal investments for their owners, and services provided at the port require a high level of community trust in the port and its tenant businesses. Maintaining this trust and a good reputation is key to the future of the port. Those who have the option to take their business elsewhere in the face of the facts outlined above are likely to do so in the event of Gantenbein becoming the only option for the provision of critical services to those who dock at the port. His potential ownership of Giddings Boatworks and managing the Charleston Shipyard may therefore negatively impact the ability of the Coos Bay community to use our port recreationally and commercially, as well as presenting a barrier to further public and private investment in the Port. The Point Adams canal at Charleston Marina will require maintenance in the near term, meaning that the question of how critical tax dollars will be used to further the business interests of an apparent white nationalist organizer is not far off.
As the Port of Coos Bay works towards more transparent communication with and accountability to community organizations and community members, we are alarmed by the way in which this information trickled into public view via comments at a recent Port Commission meeting. We urge you to exercise leadership and bring as much clarity as possible to the situation as well as the timeline for this purchase, as this transaction has the potential to negatively affect our community in broader ways.
We believe that the Port Commission has the best interests of the Charleston fishing community and the greater Coos Bay community at heart, and we know that this is a difficult issue involving competing interests, the need to maintain port operations, and a longstanding gap in workforce development. However, approving this lease would not solve these problems; it would instead create another, larger problem for our community, state, and nation. The answers lie in investing in and supporting the needs of the fishing community in ways that expand the pool of viable services at the port, not concentrating them in the hands of one person who presents a potential risk to the future of our port. We respectfully urge you to consider the Port Commission’s responsibility to its community and to the accessibility and functioning of the port in making a principled decision against this lease.
Sincerely,
IBEW Local Union 932
Oregon’s Bay Area
Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition
Oregon Just Transition Alliance
Rogue Climate
Sierra Club Oregon Chapter
South Coast Health Equity Coalition
Unite Oregon
Western States Center