TENNESSEE: Interfaith Leaders Denounce Neo-Nazi March Following Black History Event
NASHVILLE: A group of interfaith leaders and Nashville politicians denounced a white supremacist march held downtown on Saturday while decrying anti-immigration rhetoric they say has emboldened dangerous racist views.
More than two dozen marchers, the majority of whom hid their faces with full masks, unfurled swastika flags amid Nazi salutes and repeated chants of “Save the white man” and “Deport every Mexican.”
Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, and his chief of staff, Chandler Quaile, were leaving a downtown event Saturday honoring an historic Black sorority when they heard the group yelling. Quaile, who has Jewish and Mexican grandparents, recorded the group as it marched down the street.
“I began to cry because these are the types of people and ideologies that wiped out my ancestors, that reminded my grandparents every day that this country would never be their country, that they didn’t belong, that they had no place here,” Quaile said at a Monday news conference outside the Capitol. “It’s the type of ideology that made them hide being Jewish and hide being Mexican, because it was too scary to confront the reality that in America, a hate crime is always one moment away.”
The march sparked widespread, bipartisan condemnation over the weekend for its anti-Semitic imagery. Alongside immigrant advocate groups and faith leaders, Metro Nashville Council member Zulfat Suara and Jones said Monday recent Republican rhetoric likening immigration border issues to an “invasion” emboldened white supremacists.
“What we witnessed was the direct result of politicians spreading misinformation and hate messages about immigrants,” said Tessa Lemos Del Pino, executive director of Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors.
The marchers’ red shirts included the words “Blood Tribe.” The white supremacist hate group displays Nazi imagery and holds virulent anti-Semitic views. It also often focuses on “hypermasculinity,” according to the Anti-Defamation League, and has targeted LGBTQ groups in previous public demonstrations, referring to LGBTQ groups as “pedophiles.”
On Monday, a number of Republican leaders in Tennessee were among a bipartisan group that continued to denounce the marchers and what they stood for, including House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge.
“Our nation spent significant blood and treasure during WWII to rid the world of the wicked and murderous ideology of Nazism,” McNally said on social media. “To see this hate resurface on the streets of our state Capitol was horrific. Those thugs do not represent TN values and they are not welcome here — ever.”
