Tennessee 'White Lives Matter' Rally Fizzles

MURFREESBORO, TN — Hundreds of counter-protesters and dozens of members of the press stood outside in the chilly October afternoon for hours Saturday, waiting for white supremacists, who never really came.

There was certainly a sense of anxiousness in Murfreesboro before the planned 1 p.m. start of the rally organized by the National Front, a sort of umbrella group of white nationalist groups who were heavily involved in the deadly Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. in August. At 130,000 people, Murfreesboro is Tennessee's sixth-largest city and is the seat of Rutherford County, one of the fastest-growing counties in the country. On a clear, albeit brisk, Saturday, the bars and shops of downtown should have been bustling, but instead windows were boarded up, barriers blocked vehicle access to the square and law enforcement took up positions.

It was a bit surreal. Law enforcement, which included everything from local city police and sheriff's deputies to mounted police from Nashville to agents from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and even the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency — one of whom admitted he would have preferred to be out catching poachers instead of doing crowd control — finally began letting the crowd trickle through the barricades and metal detectors at 1:30 p.m.

At that point, the square started to fill with counter-protesters on the outside and, in the inner ring nearest the county courthouse, the press. The square was largely silent except for the music blaring from Shacklett's Photography, the only business that opted to stay open. Tinkling piano-based Muzak gave way to instrumentals of well-known hymns as snipers patrolled on nearby roofs.

Every now and then, various anti-fascist, anti-Nazi, anti-racist, anti-white supremacy chants would build, ebb and recede. The crowd began to grow a bit anxious as, after all, they were chanting together and not really at anyone, because, still, the area designated for the "White Lives Matter" folks was still occupied by just the press.

Rumors spread there was a delay getting the white nationalists from an earlier rally in Shelbyville, 25 minutes down the road, that drew about 500 people, mostly counter-protesters and occasionally turned heated and resulted in one arrest.

A handful of White Lives Matter supporters did finally make their way into the square, snapping photos in front of the generic Confederate memorial, one draped in a Confederate flag. Eventually, the counter-protesters noticed that they'd arrived and began yelling and chanting and busting on their shoes — one of the White Lives Matter protesters was wearing knock-off Nike Air Jordans, it seemed. Separated by barricades and a line of nightstick-bearing sheriff's deputies, the two sides — well, one or two white nationalists versus scores of counter-protesters — yelled at one another. It got heated enough that the mounted police came over to add another layer of protection and their horses added another layer of excrement to the streets.

So eventually that calmed down, the first handful of protesters, grown bored or perhaps realizing something else was afoot, gave up and left. A few more would trickle in now and then and would get surrounded by the press, creating the farcical scene of one white nationalist giving a speech no one could hear because he was encircled by two dozen members of the media.

The whole thing started to resemble a very complicated practical joke that cost umpteen thousands in taxpayer dollars and lost revenue for businesses on the square. Before it all kicked off — or before it didn't kick off, as the case may be — a chef at The Alley said "They don't teach you about this in culinary school" and said a group of regulars helped the hangout board up the night before, since the kitchen had to remain open to finish the catering for a wedding and a charity event.

At 3:03 p.m., Hunter Wallace, public relations chief for the secessionist white nationalist League of the South, tweeted that the event in Murfreesboro had been called because the group "had some intel Murfreesboro was a lawsuit trap" without explaining where that intel came from or what a "lawsuit trap" was.

Cheers went up as news spread, the counter-protesters realizing they'd won merely by showing up. The White Lives Matter rally was supposedly relocated to Henry Horton State Park, a secluded park about 45 minutes west of Mufreesboro in Chapel Hill, Tenn., which was, coincidentally (or not), the home of slave trader, Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Murfreesboro officials estimated the crowd at 800 to 1,000, which would mean there were about 765 to 965 counter-protesters, 25 press and 10 white nationalists.

As the crowd trickled out, the law enforcement relaxed and the music turned back up at Shacklett's, which defiantly stayed open throughout it all. This time the tunes were from Zamfir, the modern master of the pan flute.

All photos by J.R. Lind, Patch staff