Peckerwood

A symbolic word used by racist skinheads in logos and tattos.

Often the symbol will include the letters PW or APW, which stand for Peckerwood and American Peckerwood, respectively. The symbol sometimes is drawn to resemble the Woody Woodpecker cartoon character.

Southern blacks used "peckerwood" as a derogatory term to describe poor and/or rural Southern whites...

Later, peckerwood came to be used in the North as well, as a general description for white people.

At some point, peckerwood evolved into a term used to describe white prison inmates.

Currently, the term peckerwood is used to refer both to white youths with loose ties to white power gangs in and out of prison, as well as to actual skinhead gangs who have incorporated "peckerwood" into their name.

A Visual Database of Extremist Symbols, Logos and Tattoos - Peckerwood

prison slang terms

also see: Featherwood, the female version of a peckerwood, or a peckerwood's wife