“White Lives Matter” activists were in for a surprise Saturday when they were forced to cancel a rally in Tennessee’s Murfreesboro after more protesters than sympathizers turned up for the event, according to reports in the local media.
The demonstrations, jointly organized by far-right white nationalist groups The League of the South and Nationalist Front, were intended to embolden anti-immigration sentiments and ideas of white nativism at a time when a wave of white supremacist rallies are being planned and organized across the country, as reported by CNN.
However, while the white nationalists were able to gather at Tennessee’s Shelbyville as planned, counter-protesters holding up banners displaying anti-fascist and anti-supremacist sentiment appeared in large numbers and drowned them out, effectively ending any hopes the “White Lives Matter” activists had of holding a bigger rally in nearby Murfreesboro.
One reporter covering the event said on Twitter that the counter-protesters outnumbered the organizers and neo-nazis by roughly two to one.
“White Lives Matter” activists, some of whom arrived late to flag off the march at Shelbyville, were greeted with Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech blaring out from a public address system, reported ShareBlue . As the following video shows, to counter this move by the protesters, the white nationalists then began to chant “Blood and Soil” in unison, a rallying war cry straight out from the crevices of Nazi Germany.
Counter protesters play I Have A Dream speech. Nazis start Blood and Soil chant. Wait to the end of the video. #Shelbyville pic.twitter.com/wi94m7fggQ
— Christopher Mathias (@letsgomathias) October 28, 2017
BREAKING: White nationalists march in to Shelbyville chanting “Closed borders, white nation, now we start the deportation.” pic.twitter.com/0KeuEKCIQv
— Natalie Allison (@natalie_allison) October 28, 2017
The “White Lives Matter” activists had planned the march to extend all the way to Murfreesboro, a city with a much larger population than Shelbyville. However, news quickly poured out through law enforcement that counter-protesters in excess of 1,000 in number had gathered at Murfreesboro to denounce the white nationalist march. Soon enough, the march which was supposed to culminate in Murfreesboro was called off.
Even so, the public relations chief of The League of the South said that it was on account of Murfreesboro being a “lawsuit trap” that his organization had decided to call off the event. But photographic evidence made it quite clear that the overwhelming opposition to the white supremacist rally was the sole reason for the cancellation.
Thousands of people took to the streets and protested against the “White Lives Matter” rally, sending an ominous sign to white nationalists everywhere to think twice before planning another rally of a similar nature.
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[Featured Image by Buglewicz/Getty Images]
