Cole Tomas Allen, WHCD gunman linked to far left political group, The Wide Awakes which espoused artistic collective organization and collaboration addressing social and political issues.
Cole Tomas Allen, the suspect arrested in the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner (WHCA) dinner, has been linked to a political group called ‘The Wide Awakes‘, with a progressive, far left bent imploring civic and artistic action.
Allen’s sister told Secret Service and Montgomery County Police on Sunday her brother often made ‘radical statements’ and frequently referenced a plan to do ‘something’ to fix what he saw as problems in the country, adding he was part of ‘The Wide Awakes.’
The Wide Awakes, a decentralized artist-activist collective founded around 2020 by Hank Willis Thomas and collaborators, revives 1860s torchlight procession imagery with Mylar capes and eye emblems. The group organizes marches, voter events and protests focused on racial justice,… pic.twitter.com/S69DDxnRIM
— SafetySwipe (@SafetyNotorious) April 26, 2026
Original The Wide Awakes group linked to civil war era and abolition of slavery
The connection to The Wide Awakes—a group whose name dates back to a Civil War-era political movement linked to President Abraham Lincoln—has raised new questions about the suspect’s motivations and political affiliations.
The original Wide Awakes were a Republican political organization founded in Hartford, Connecticut, on March 3, 1860, dedicated to electing Lincoln to the presidency, according to the National Park Service (NPS). Founded by five young law clerks, the group took its name to symbolize their political awareness.
The Wide Awakes were a political curiosity in the North but viewed with suspicion and fear in the South, where newspapers exaggerated the group’s paramilitary aspects according to Wikipedia.
Who are the modern Wide Awakes group?
A modern Wide Awakes network was launched in 2020, drawing direct inspiration from the original movement.
The Wide Awakes according to its website, ‘believe art has the power to wake people up. Artists are always at the vanguard of social change, and art is a tool to educate, motivate, and activate our citizenry, inspire us, open our hearts and minds, and transform our lives.’
According to Amplifier.org—one of the founding organizations—the new Wide Awakes are ‘a network of thousands of artists, cultural workers, and activists driven by the most urgent social and political issues of our time.’ The modern network describes itself as one of the largest collaborations of cultural leaders in U.S. history, with nationwide civic actions organized before and after the 2020 election.
Based on the public record of its activities, founding partners, rhetoric, and its own publicly available organizing toolkit, the modern Wide Awakes operate on the political left and frame their work around progressive social justice causes.
What was Cole Allen’s connection to The Wide Awakes group?
According to Amplifier, the modern movement frames its work as a response to a national choice between ‘chaos or community,’ and operates through chapters that organize art-driven activism, voter engagement, and community building. The connection between Allen and the modern Wide Awakes group remains under investigation, and it is unclear what specific role —if any—his alleged affiliation may have played in the attack.
‘We are infinite, disruptive, enlightened, visionary, accountable,’ a Wide Awakes website reads. ‘We want the radical complexity of diversity. We believe creative liberation is a game and all of us can play now and forever.’
‘We can emancipate ourselves without violence,’ the website adds. ‘We don’t need to be told what to believe or how to engage, we just need to be inspired to question what’s there. Broadening perspective yields a safer world.’
And it seems anybody can join — the group invites anyone to put on their own events or create art in their name.
‘Call on local DJs, Musicians, Speakers, Organizers, and Artists to plan a joyous community gathering,’ are some of the suggested ways to participate listed on the group’s website.
Progressive movement championing ‘justice, democracy and welfare for all people that are threatened’
The modern Wide Awakes do not publish a formal policy platform discussing its take on popular issues such as abortion, immigration, transgender rights or gun control. Instead, the network according to Newsweek, frames its work in broader cultural and democratic terms — describing itself in its own materials as a movement for ‘liberation of mind, body, and spirit’ that emerges ‘where justice, democracy and welfare for all people are threatened.’
The group’s published toolkit — used to organize chapter activations around the 2020 and 2021 elections — points to specific progressive electoral causes. The toolkit directs members to volunteer with Fair Fight Action, and to support the Senate campaigns of Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. The group’s “Civic Joy” framing emphasized food banks, music, art, and community building at polling sites in counties ‘vulnerable to long lines and voter suppression.’
Members have also explicitly tied their work to Black Lives Matter (BLM), opposition to mass incarceration, immigrant rights, women’s suffrage and the legacy of civil rights activism. In a 2020 Dazed Digital roundtable, Wide Awakes founders described the movement as a ‘liberation movement’ focused on dismantling what impact strategist Carly Fischer called ‘the paradigm of the United States — slavery as the basis of the economic system.’
The Wide Awakes’ appear to be a non violent group, having previously published materials describing a movement organized entirely around art, music, food, meditation and what curator Wildcat Ebony Brown called ‘joy as an act of resistance.’
The group’s toolkit lists activities including poster-making, flag-making, ‘eyeball lantern’ workshops, DJ sets, prayer and meditation sessions, “nourishment stations” distributing food at polling places, and performance art.
There is no documentation in the group’s public materials of any advocacy for violence, armed action, or confrontation of political figures.
