TENNESSEE MOBILIZES AGAINST TAXPAYER-FUNDED HATE

The Klan rally in Memphis on March 30.  The American Renaissance Conference on April 5-7 just outside Nashville. We write a lot about racial concerns in Tennessee, but it looks like the folks down there about had enough because both those events are going to see opposition.

One People’s Project

Two events sponsored by white supremacist groups at the beginning of next month have prompted residents of Tennessee to mount a week’s worth of opposition to what they feel is putting their state in a bad spotlight, particularly because the events come courtesy of taxpayer dollars.

In Memphis, which is 63 percent black, the Ida B. Wells Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality and Black Autonomy Copwatch is organizing a March 30 rally against one planned by the Loyal Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in response to the city council changing the name of a park named after Nathan Bedford Forrest a Confederate General and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The North Carolina-based Klan group is led by a man whom is reportedly a pariah among other Klan groups that have made him persona non grata. Regardless, he says this will be the largest Klan rally in recent times. To that end, several groups from around the country, including antifa, are planning to make their way to Memphis to counter the rally.

One week later, several groups plan to oppose the American Renaissance Conference (AmRen) taking place April 5 – 7 at Montgomery Bell Park Inn in Dickson, TN. This is the second year the hate publication has come out to this location after being chased out of the Washington, DC area and Charlotte, NC the two years prior. AmRen has a history of its attendees losing their jobs upon returning home. Last year, Richard Weisberg lost his columnist position at the National Review when it was learned that he spoke at AmRen. In 2008, another person who was a prosecutor in upstate New York lost his job when it was learned he attended that year’s conference.

 While last year’s event saw little to no opposition, this year the Anti-Nazi Klan Coalition plans a demonstration on April 5, while on the following day, a coalition of groups are planning an event in Montgomery Bell Park called “Not In Our State: a Grassroots Effort to Confront White Supremacy and Hate. Several speakers are planned for the all-day event and other activites in the park are expected as well. In addition, a petition condemning the AmRen conference has been posted on the internet and even promoted by local radio stations, and the venue as well as the Dickson mayor has been receiving phone calls regularly from persons around the country voicing their outrage that such an event is taking place.

The conference is purposefully being held here because the New Century Foundation, which publishes American Renaissance, feels they cannot be barred from a publicly-owned venue as they have the hotels they used to use before having their doors shut to them. Those opposed to the event have taken issue with that, saying taxpayer dollars are being used to fund hate politics. Likewise in Memphis, those opposing the Klan have said that public funds should not be used to maintain the gravesite of Nathan Bedford Forrest or a park named after him.