Editing William Luther Pierce (section)

== Early life and education ==
[[File:William Luther Pierce at young age in military outfit.jpeg|thumb|upright=0.65|Pierce in a high school [[military academy]] uniform|left]]
William Luther Pierce III was born in [[Atlanta]], Georgia, on September 11, 1933. His family moved to Texas when Pierce was four years old.{{sfn|Berger|2016a|p=7}} The son of William Luther Pierce Jr. and Marguerite Ferrell, his [[Presbyterian]] family was of Scotch-Irish and English descent.{{sfn|Griffin|2001|p=26}} His father was born in [[Christiansburg, Virginia]], in 1892. His mother was born in [[Richland, Georgia]], in 1910, with her family being part of the aristocracy of the [[Old South]], descendants of [[Thomas H. Watts]], the [[governor of Alabama]] and attorney general of the [[Confederate States of America]].<ref>{{harvnb|Griffin|2001|p=30}}</ref>{{sfn|Morris|2017|pages=33–34}} After the [[American Civil War]], the family lived a working-class existence.<ref>{{harvnb|Griffin|2001|p=36}}</ref> Pierce's father once served as a government representative on ocean-going cargo ships;<ref name="ReferenceA">{{harvnb|Griffin|2001|p=31}}</ref> he later became manager of an insurance agency but was killed in a car accident in 1942.{{sfn|Morris|2017|p=34}}

Following his father's death, he attended public schools in West Virginia until he and his mother moved to [[Montgomery, Alabama]]. His last two years in high school were spent at the [[Allen Academy|Allen Military Academy]] in [[Bryan, Texas]], where he did well academically.{{sfn|Morris|2017|p=34}} Pierce later said that as a teen he had been "sort of a nerdy kid without social skills", awkward around women and with few friends.{{sfn|Berger|2016a|p=7}} His teenage hobbies and interests were in [[model rocket]]s, [[chemistry]], radios, electronics, and reading science fiction, particularly the pulp magazine ''[[Planet Stories]]''.<ref name="ReferenceA" />{{sfn|Berger|2016a|p=7}} After finishing military school in 1951, Pierce worked briefly in an oil field as a [[roustabout]]. He was injured when a pipe fell on his hand, and he spent the rest of that summer working as a shoe salesman.<ref>{{harvnb|Griffin|2001|p=34}}</ref> 

Pierce earned a full scholarship to attend [[Rice University]] in [[Houston]] in 1951.{{sfn|Morris|2017|p=34}} He graduated from Rice in 1955 with a bachelor's degree in [[physics]].<ref name="SPLC-Bio">{{Cite news |title=William Pierce |url=https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/william-pierce |access-date=2021-03-16 |work=[[Southern Poverty Law Center]] |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="ADL-Bio">{{Cite news |title=Extremism in America: William Pierce |url=http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/Pierce.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=2&item=wp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116145156/http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/Pierce.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=2&item=wp |archive-date=2013-01-16 |work=[[Anti-Defamation League]] |language=en-US}}</ref> He worked at the [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] before attending graduate school, initially at the [[California Institute of Technology]] during 1955–56.<ref name="SPLC-Bio" /><ref name="Sutherland">{{Cite news |last=Sutherland |first=John |author-link=John Sutherland (author) |date=1997-05-22 |title=Higher Man |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v19/n10/john-sutherland/higher-man |access-date=2018-12-24 |work=[[London Review of Books]] |language=en-US |volume=19 |issue=10 |issn=0260-9592}}</ref> At the University of Colorado in [[Boulder, Colorado]], he earned a master's degree and a [[Doctor of Philosophy|doctorate]] in 1962.{{sfn|Berger|2016a|p=7}}<ref name="Reed">{{Cite news |last=Reed |first=Christopher |date=2002-07-25 |title=William Pierce |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/jul/25/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries1 |access-date=2018-12-24 |work=[[The Guardian]] |location=London |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> He taught physics as an assistant professor at [[Oregon State University]] from 1962 to 1965.{{sfn|Morris|2017|p=34}} His tenure as assistant professor at Oregon State University coincided with the rise of the [[civil rights movement]] and later the [[Counterculture of the 1960s|counterculture]].{{sfn|Berger|2016a|p=7}}{{sfn|Morris|2017|p=34}} During his education, Pierce had paid little attention to the wider world; he claimed that he had initially been sympathetic to the idea of black civil rights, but was suspicious of integration as damaging [[freedom of association]].{{sfn|Berger|2016a|pp=7–8}} He was inflamed by a supposed media bias against segregationists; when some of his colleagues blamed this on Jews, he became more interested in racial matters, and became increasingly militant in his thoughts on race.{{sfn|Berger|2016a|p=8}} He blamed [[Jews]] for the civil rights movement, along with the [[ List of protests against the Vietnam War |protests]] against the [[Vietnam War]].<ref name="Sutherland" />