![](https://wpln.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2019/06/murfreesboro_anti-white_supremacy_signs-1024x682.jpg)
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has joined Democratic officials in condemning the dozens of self-proclaimed white nationalists who marched through downtown Nashville over the weekend.
“I think we’ve seen anti–Semitism rise up all across this country, unfortunately and sadly,” the governor said Monday. “We should stand against it at every time and every place.”
On Saturday, members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front wore matching uniforms, with ski masks and sunglasses to obscure their faces, and carried American and Confederate flags.
Witnesses say they chanted the Nazi “Seig Heil” salute and called for mass deportations of nonwhite people.
This is the second time this year white supremacists have marched in Nashville. In February, a group carried flags with swastikas around the capitol. As of 2021, there were 28 active hate groups in Tennessee, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Nashville’s leaders, including Vice Mayor Angie Henderson and Mayor Freddie O’Connell, immediately spoke out against the most-recent march.
📢🚨NOT PATRIOTS. These are hateful, Trump-emboldened cowards.
These groups are not welcome in our city, and we will not be intimidated by fascists.
We should all shout from the roof tops & street corners as loud & long as we can: SHAME ON YOU! https://t.co/hgTuI1SM3r
— Angie E. Henderson (@angienashville) July 7, 2024
But what we should all do is refuse to allow this to be 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.
And in Nashville we won’t.
— Freddie O’Connell (@freddieoconnell) July 7, 2024
The Tennessee Democratic Party also released a statement condemning the march.
White Supremacists Nazis marching through the streets of Nashville today is a reminder that our fight has never been more important. We must never concede an inclusive and civil society to these right wing terrorists. pic.twitter.com/KFT7U3Yme7
— Tennessee Democratic Party (@tndp) July 7, 2024
As of Monday evening, Republican U.S. Senators Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn, as well as Nashville’s three congressmen, have remained silent.