Tennessee 'White Lives Matter' Rallies Set For Saturday

MURFREESBORO, TN — After weeks of planning and often nervous anticipation, the two so-called "White Lives Matter" rallies are set to get underway in the towns of Shelbyville and Murfreesboro, south of Nashville.

Back-to-back "White Lives Matter" rallies are planned in the two town squares Saturday, organized by National Front, the loose confederation of white supremacist groups that helped organize the United The Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where tiki-torch-bearing white nationalists sought, ostensibly, to protect a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on August 11 and then held a march that turned deadly the next day when counter-protester Heather Heyer died after being run over by a car that plowed into a crowd, allegedly driven by James Fields, 20, who is charged with second-degree murder.

Brad Griffin, a member of the neo-Confederate group League of the South who blogs about white nationalist topics under the alias Hunter Wallace, told The Tennessean that white nationalist groups believe that police departments in Tennessee will keep better separation between the white supremacists and those who oppose them. White nationalist groups blame the violence at their rallies on far-left protesters and police who fail to keep them at a safe distance from the far-right marchers.

Griffin said the protest in Shelbyville is a statement against refugee resettlement, while in Murfreesboro, the focus is on the removal of Confederate monuments. The lawn of the Rutherford County Courthouse on the square in Murfreesboro contains several statues, including a general Confederate memorial, similar to many other county seats in Tennessee. The League of the South also said they are protesting "the recent black-on-white church shooting in Antioch." While the accused shooter in the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ attack, Emanuel Samson, was born in Sudan, the church has a fairly diverse membership.

League spokesman Griffin told WKRN they expect only about 100 people marching at Saturday's rallies.

Most every business in a two-block radius of the Murfreesboro square is closing Saturday, though Shacklett's Photography — a mainstay on the square for eight decades — is stubbornly staying open to prove the marchers don't scare them.

Patch will be on the square in Murfreesboro. Check back for updates.

Photo by Emily Molli/NurPhoto via Getty Image