The number of hate and anti-government groups in Tennessee rose by four since last year, marking a return to pre-2021 numbers, according to an annual report published by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
The legal advocacy nonprofit, which has been cataloging national hate groups since 1981, tracked 37 hate groups across the state in 2023, as opposed to 2022’s 33.
2023 also saw a 33% jump in active white nationalist and anti-LGBTQ+ groups across the country, marking the highest number ever recorded by the group.
According to the SPLC’s metrics, there are 595 hate groups and 835 anti-government groups across the country.
The SPLC defines a hate group as an organization that publicly espouses beliefs or practices that “attack or malign an entire class of people.”
“The organizations on the SPLC list vilify others because of their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity—prejudices that strike at the heart of our democratic values and fracture society along its most fragile fault lines,” the SPLC said.
Last year in Tennessee, the SPLC identified 22 hate groups, including: Anti-LGBTQ, Anti-Muslim, Christian Identity, Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazi and White Nationalist groups, along with 15 Anti-government groups, including one militia.
Tennessee also ranked fourth-highest in the country for far-right protests at drag events following the rash of state laws across the country to limit drag performances, which began with the Adult Entertainment Act passed in Tennessee in March 2023. Tennessee saw 16 protests in 2023, just under North Carolina’s 26, California’s 21 and Texas’ 19.
More: Could Tennessee drag restrictions apply in private homes? How state argued before a federal appeals court
The number of hate groups had minutely declined since 2021, but has been slowly rising in the years since.
Some of new additions to the list this year include the American Patriot Vanguard group, Tactical Civics Wilson County and the Lewis Country Store, a family-owned log cabin marketplace known for it’s controversial political signage and for harboring members of the white-supremacist Tennessee Active Club.
The news comes as Nashville deals with pushback to a white nationalist march through downtown that occurred on July 6.
The group behind the July 6 march, known as the Patriot Front, is an offshoot of the aforementioned American Patriot Vanguard group.
Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell swiftly denounced on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, the Patriot Front march Saturday, though he acknowledged the group’s right to freedom of speech.
“Yesterday, a number of people shockingly comfortable publicly identifying themselves as white nationalists marched through Nashville,” O’Connell said Sunday. “My first priority in this moment — as always — was the safety of Nashvillians. I refuse to platform hate actors, so I have no interest in giving any group or member the attention they seek.”
O’Connell continued, calling on residents to keep groups like Patriot Front from being normalized.
“Just because someone is exercising their First Amendment rights does not mean we must accept someone shamelessly identifying as a Nazi as just another American,” O’Connell said. “And in Nashville, we won’t.”
There were no incidents of direct threats to anyone’s physical safety, O’Connell said.
“Going forward, we’re exploring how we can thoroughly address unlawful activity of the group and prevent it in the future,” the mayor said.
Asked about the march during a news conference at the Nashville Rotary Club on Monday, Gov. Bill Lee condemned the group’s demonstration.
“My understanding is that group has some anti-Semitic ties and should be condemned at every level,” Lee said. “Jewish people in this community and around the world have suffered for generations. Antisemitism should not be tolerated.”
On Telegram, a messaging app where Patriot Front telegraphs their activities, they touted the Saturday rally as a “resounding success” with a group “roughly triple the size” of the last march. Increasingly, Patriot Front has hit Middle Tennessee with spray paint, tagging the group’s name on interstate underpasses and other highly visible locations.
The USA Today Network – Tennessee’s coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners.
Have a story to tell? Reach Angele Latham by email at alatham@gannett.com, by phone at 931-623-9485, or follow her on Twitter at @angele_latham
Source link : https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2024/07/09/splc-hate-groups-tennessee-united-states-expanding/74340462007/
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Publish date : 2024-07-09 15:07:31
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