No, we didn’t forget about going to AmRen to deal with them in the woods of Dickson, TN, but this year we decided it would be a good idea to take this opportunity to build within ourselves in the State of Tennessee. We are glad we did! Much love to all that participated and helped put this together!
One People’s Project
NASHVILLE, TN – For the fourth year in a row, the White supremacist publication American (AmRen) Renaissance hosted a conference at Montgomery Bell State Park in nearby Dickson, and in response the Tennessee Anti-Racist Network sponsored a “Unconference” that brought out people from different communities to discuss ways to combat the hate-mongering and bigoted politics that are promoted at events such as the AmRen conference as well as other events in the state that have been so frequent, the Southern Poverty Law Canter termed Tennessee in a recent article a “Hate Tourist Mecca”.
People came from all over Tennessee and other states to attend the Unconference held at the Morgan House of the First Unitarian Universalist Church, and participated in a number of sessions that addressed the criminal justice system, transgender issues and eventually the AmRen conference itself. Among those that gave presentations were the Nashville chapter of Black Lives Matter, anti-racist organizer and lecturer Criss Crass, Code Pink coordinator Elizabeth Barger, who ran a panel discussion on how racism is among the root causes of war, and Lasia Wade founder of the Tennessee Transgender Justice Project (TNTJ) who facilitated a session dealing with issues facing transgender women of color.
Although there were some hostile and threatening emails from possible hate mongers, the event remained peaceful and successful enough for organizers to promise another conference next year should AmRen return. A similar event was held at Montgomery Bell Park itself two years ago on the occasion of the second AmRen conference.
After the Unconference concluded, a handful of persons participated in a direct action against the AmRen conference itself at the Montgomery Bell Park Inn. Many protested outside, some holding signs made during a workshop at the Unconference, and heckled the conference attendees who sat outside, some of whom heckled back with one of them having to be reprimanded by law enforcement maintain security during the event. At one point, Jared Taylor stepped out to speak to the individual who eventually walked back inside with him.
Because the venue is public, anyone can enter, so One People’s Project joined others to sit inside and eventually spoke with AmRen conference attendees, including Christopher Cortes, a young man who indentified himself as Puerto Rican and Cuban that believed that keeping races seperate was the only way to reduce conflict. “I want to work together based on other ethnic groups,” Cortes said. “I want to work to strive towards segregation. I want to work together with Black nationalists, I want to work together with Asian nationalists, I want to together work with every ethnic nationalist group. We can work together through segregation.”
The AmRen Conference was one of several events across the country held during the weekend. In addition to that event, the National Socialist Movement (NSM) held their conference and a rally in Toledo, Ohio, ten years after their last event there which resulted in a riot between counter-protestors and police. Coiencidentially, last year’s NSM Conference was held in Chattanooga, Tennessee the same weekend as last year’s AmRen Conference. Meanwhile, the white supremacist League of the South held a small rally in Talahassee, Florida to protest college students burning a Confederate Flag the weekend before, and the neo-fascist Hungarian party Jobbik holding an event in New York City.
The AmRen Conference has been held at Montgomery Bell Park since 2012 since venues in the Washington, DC area and Charlotte, NC shut their doors to them. The location was selected because it is a state-owned facility and cannot turn them away, but last year, Tennessee began the process of privatizing that and other such facilities in state parks, so it is unknown how long the conference will continue to be held there. The program for the Unconference featured a map of Tennessee, that noted five White seperatist events that were held in state parks since 2013, among them being events put on by the Southern National Congress, the white supremacist website Stormfront, the Ku Klux Klan and the white supremacist radio program the Political Cesspool, whose host James Edwards, like Jared Taylor, is a board member of the Council of Conservative Citizens.
Reportedly, a Council of Conservative Citizens board meeting is being held in Nashville next weekend.
Sponsors of the Tennessee Anti-Racist Unconference include:
One People’s Project
TN Anti-Racist Network (TARN)
TARN Facebook Page
Mercy Junction Justice and Peace Center at St. Andrews
Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment (SOCM)
Nashville Peace & Justice Center
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