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• • Tennessee community braces for conflict ahead of White Lives Matter rally
• • Across Tennessee, counterprotesters prepare for White Lives Matter rally
• • 'White Lives Matter' rally: Murfreesboro says no decision has been made

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SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. - In the rows of matching brick duplexes, natives of this Tennessee community live among immigrants from Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, a sign of the slowly changing demographics of this city 60 miles southeast of Nashville.

The Shelbyville Housing Authority neighborhood sits just behind one of the city's main intersections, the site of a "White Lives Matter" rally set for Saturday in protest of longtime Middle Tennesseans having to coexist with their newer, foreign-born neighbors. It follows a similar demonstration held in Charlottesville, Va., this August, a rally that turned violent and left one counterprotester dead.

Now, some Shelbyville residents are concerned about how events will unfold this weekend in their city of 21,000. 

"It does worry me, because most of the housing project is a bunch of different races," said Varina Hinojosa, 37.

She remembers in 1980 watching robed Ku Klux Klan members walk the sidewalk along U.S. 41 in Shelbyville, lingering outside Bright Temple Church of God in Christ - a predominately African-American church where one of her friends attended - and passing out fliers on the corner. 

Nearly four decades later, Price said she dreads the thought of another white supremacist demonstration in her city.

"I'm not going to have them coming over here starting nothing," said Price, who like Hinojosa is a white woman born and raised in Tennessee.

Why this town?

Though speculation and rumors continue to spread among residents in Shelbyville as to why a group of white nationalist organizations - including those that were part of the August "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville - chose their city, the leaders of the event have made it clear: The demographics of Middle Tennessee have changed, in part because of the resettlement of refugees and other immigrants moving to the region.

The State Department reports that over the last 15 years around 18,000 refugees have arrived in Tennessee, amounting to just over one-quarter of 1% of the state's population. That figure doesn't include immigrants who have moved to the region.

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NASHVILLE - Almost as soon as an alliance of white nationalist groups announced it was planning to hold a rally this month in Tennessee, opposing activists across the state sprang into action.

On the heels of a similar demonstration that turned violent and deadly two months ago in Charlottesville, Va., they're at work mobilizing counterprotesters to stand in opposition to members of Nationalist Front, which will hold a "White Lives Matter" rally Oct. 28 in Shelbyville, Tenn., and has applied for a permit to do so later that day in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

"I think we can affect the national discourse for this, but I also think in Shelbyville, for the minorities, for the people of color and the Jews, this is going to be a chance to say 'It's not the 1950s anymore,' " said Chris Irwin, an attorney aligned with the Tennessee Anti-Racist Network.

"These guys don't get to walk the streets unopposed in their robes anymore. These towns belong to us, not them. And I think that's really exciting."

Nationalist Front is a loose network of white nationalist groups that were among those involved in the Aug. 12 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, made up of the National Socialist Movement, Traditionalist Worker Party, League of the South, Vanguard America, White Lives Matter and others.

The Southern Poverty Law Center considers each of the organizations to be an extremist group, falling under neo-Nazi, neo-Confederate and white nationalist categories.

Through both public and private social media pages, Irwin said the Tennessee-based anti-racist organization and several other partner groups are assembling counterprotesters to carpool to the rallies.

They're creating fliers to post across the state about the organizations that are rallying.

A group in Shelbyville is going door to door to talk to business owners, asking them to take a stand opposing members of Nationalist Front who say they're coming into town that weekend.

"As I understand it, they're looking for a community that's welcoming to them," said Sharon Edwards, chair of the Bedford County (Tenn.) Democratic Party, where Shelbyville is located. "They're looking for a place where they can recruit people and just sort of feel at home. My hope is that all the businesses participate, and everywhere they drive, they're faced with the fact that Shelbyville does not want them here."

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No decision has been made about a planned League of the South rally planned for Oct. 28 in downtown Murfreesboro, despite the wording of a news release issued to the Daily News Journal on Monday.

The later-refuted joint statement from the city of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County said in part: "While the views of the groups planning the event do not represent those of the city and county, the First Amendment provides a right to free speech and the right to assemble, and thus, neither the city nor the county can legally prohibit the event. The city and county, however, are exploring various measures they can take to preserve and promote public safety, before, during and after the event."

The news release, dated Oct. 12, from Mike Browning, public information officer for the city, was given to the DNJ by Rutherford County.

But late Monday, Browning said that was only a draft news release. "No such decision has been made," he said.

The joint statement from the city and county urged to avoid the public square on Oct. 28 "in the interest of reducing tension and avoiding conflicts."

However, several local groups are planning counter-protests across Murfreesboro.

Gaining momentum on social media is #MurfreesboroLoves Community Action Against Hate, a bipartisan conglomerate of more than 50 individuals, businesses, nonprofits and faith-based groups who are joined as one voice.

"We formed the group essentially to try to minimize the negative impact of this white supremacist is going to have on our community," said Jason Bennett, co-organizer of #MurfreesboroLoves. "We came together to try to figure out how to best do that. Lots of different ideas came up."

Safety is the top concern, Bennett said. And because #MurfreesboroLoves "is a peaceful, nonviolent, nonconfrontational movement," the decision was made to forgo attending the rally itself, he said.   

Instead of facing the White Lives Matter rally-goers, #MurfreesboroLoves is encouraging citizens to protest in other ways.

Alternative actions

A message was released about the movement last Thursday, followed by a video that can be shared on social media and a "frame" that can be installed on Facebook profile photos. 

A group of Christians  has begun gathering daily at 6 a.m. at the corner of East Main and Church streets on the square to pray over the situation. Anyone is invited to participate, Bennett said

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Middle Tennessee State University has canceled multiple events planned for Saturday and will lock residents halls this weekend in anticipation of a white nationalist rally set to take place in Murfreesboro.

On Tuesday night, university President Sidney McPhee sent out an email to the campus announcing that the Contest of Champions band competition had been canceled and the Expanding Your Horizons science event will be postponed.

In an email, McPhee wrote that because of the rally set for Saturday and potential counterprotests taking place downtown, the university "decided it was wise to reduce traffic to the surrounding area," as well as free up campus police officers and security workers to "be available elsewhere on campus if needed."

Organizers of a "White Lives Matter" rally have applied for a permit to demonstrate Saturday afternoon outside the Rutherford County Courthouse, located in the city's Public Square, though as of Tuesday the city still had not officially granted the event permit.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - White nationalists plan to gather in Middle Tennessee this weekend, where they'll hold White Lives Matter rallies in Shelbyville and Murfreesboro to protest refugee resettlement and immigration.

The organizations bringing members to rally have said they're doing so as an alliance called Nationalist Front, but what are the groups?

Here's a primer on each group and their causes. The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Montgomery, Ala., considers all of them extremist organizations.

Traditionalist Worker Party

Self-described as a political party seeking to "establish an independent white ethno-state in North America" in which immigration is "limited to members of the White European Race," the Traditionalist Worker Party is a relatively new group. It formed a couple of years ago under the leadership of Matt Parrott and Matthew Heimbach of Indiana after they started the Traditionalist Youth Network.

At Unite the Right and other protests, members have outfitted themselves with shields, wearing masks and often all-black clothing

Based in Detroit, the National Socialist Movement has been around for more than two decades.

On its website, the organization is open about equating National Socialism with Nazism, as well as attributing its ideology to that of Adolf Hitler.

"Adolf Hitler and National Socialism pulled Germany and her people out of the depression by creating meaningful jobs for them," reads an answer to one of this group's frequently asked questions. "They also went the extra mile and made life a true joy for their people! Hitler loved and cared deeply for the average person."

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which considers the organization "one of the largest and most prominent neo-Nazi groups in the United States," pegs its start to 1994 when leadership of the group was passed to Jeff Schoep. The organization's website reports it was founded in 1974.

In the the neo-Nazi group's list of 25 Points of American National Socialism, it calls for the development of a nation made up of "only those of pure white blood," in which "no Jew or homosexual may be a member of the nation."

The National Socialist Movement demands "that all non-whites currently living in America" be forced to leave the country.