White supremacy rallies held in 2 Tennessee cities, 1 arrested
White nationalists and counter demonstrators have held rallies in the US state of Tennessee with one person being arrested.
The rallies were held in the towns of Shelbyville and Murfreesboro on Saturday and police arrested one “White Lives Matter” protester who was taking part in the demonstration.
In Shelbville, there were some 200 white supremacists but with nearly twice as many counter protesters countering them.
The white nationalists were carrying a Confederate flag and chanting for closed borders and deportations, while counter protesters played Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream."
Counter protesters, at one point, shouted "Black Lives Matter" with white nationalists chanting "blood and soil."
In Murfreesboro, around 600 people, with only about 30 white nationalists, rallied Church Street, one of the city's busiest corridors.
The counter protesters chanted "refugees are welcome here" and "this is what democracy looks like."
In a speech to a group of white nationalists, the League of the South president Michael Hill said, "You're responsible for more damage in the past century than anybody else."
"We are here to stake a claim to that which belongs to us," he said. "We will not give up until we won this fight."
Meanwhile, Sen. Lamar Alexander, (R-Tenn.), tweeted a statement, saying, "The views of the white nationalists, Nazis, white supremacists and the Klan are wrong, they are un-American, they are not welcome, and we need to be loud and clear about that."
Police, in both cities, amanged to keep off the groups and that no injuries or damage were reported.
Attendees were required to pass through a checkpoint where they were searched. They were also pinned behind metal barricades.
In August, thousands of white supremacists, KKK members and neo-Nazis descended on Charlottesville for a “Unite the Right” rally.
The rally turned violent when a car plowed through a group of demonstrators, killing one counter-protester and injuring 19 others.
President Donald Trump first blamed the violence "on many sides", but after pressure against him piled up, he later declared that “racism is evil,” singling out white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan for the violent rally.
However, a day later he again returned to his highly criticized initial response. His remarks raised questions about his own personal views of racial tensions in the US, provoking bitter criticism from members of his own party.
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