Anti-fascists protest American Renaissance Conference in Tennesee

On the 29th of July, the neo-Nazi American Renaissance Conference met at Montgomery Bell State Park in Tenessee. They have been there since they were driven from Dulles and the DC area by anti-Fascist protesters. This time around, fleeing to Tenessee did not protect them. Anti-Facists protested the event, and frustrated alt-right Nazis responsed with scattered violence. A DC activist was nearly run down by a carload of Nazis, and one AMREN attendee had to go to the hospital by helicopter after he didn't do well in the fight he chose to start.

Reported attendees at AMREN included famously punched neo-Nazi leader Richard Spencer, and infamous KKK lawyer Sam Dixon. Sam Dixon is best known in DC for goading DC police into arresting an activist at the Halloween 2015 appearance of Richard Spencer's National Policy Institute at the National Press Club.

DC Activist Lacy MacAuley posted a photo to https://twitter.com/lacymacauley showing the car that tried to run her down along with other photos of the overall event and many details. In particular she reported that one of her friends was tasered and pushed down a hill by Willam Markley, an attendee at AMREN, both of them then ending up in the lake. She also reported the helicopter ride to the hospital taken by Markley for a CAT scan, pointing out that right-wingers have threatened Antifa with "free helicopter rides" in the past but it is anti-fascists who have actually succeeded in giving a Nazi a free helicopter ride. That ride did not include though being thrown out the helicopter's door as "DC Anticom" advocates and Pinochet used to do, however. Air rescue pilots and medics are simply not into that sort of thing.

Both William Markley and the anti-fascist activist he assaulted were arrested, in the usual pattern of police siding with fascists. Apparently defending yourself from a Klansman or Nazi is considered "disorderly conduct" in Tennesee. Unlike his victim,Markley was still in jail the next day, apparently his buddies did not want to be bothered with bailing him out.

Anti-Fascist rally outside American Renaissance Conference at a park in Tenessee. Photo by Lacy

This is the carload of Nazis that tried to run down DC activist Lacy MacAuley, she got this photo of it.

Awful fancy digs at Montgomery Bell State Park for a neo-Nazi convention. Photo by Lacy MacAuley

Mocking photo posted to https://twitter.com/lacymacauley after neo-Nazi started a fight only to end up going to the hospital by helicopter.

Creative Commons Licence