BURNS, Tenn. (WTVF) — As the midday sun flickered through red and golden leaves, and water gurgled from a clear stream, the tranquility of a fall afternoon was interrupted by shouts of protest: "Whose park? Our park! Whose park? Our park!"
Here, at Montgomery Bell State Park, 40 miles west of downtown Nashville, about a dozen anti-fascists voiced familiar refrains as they were directed to a designated protest spot.
"No Nazis. No KKK. No fascist USA."
They were here to denounce the return of the white-supremacist American Renaissance Conference, an annual event that has been held here at the park's lodge and conference center since 2012. Organizers said the conference usually draws 200-300 people.
But, instead of white robes and masks, conference attendees come dressed in suits and ties.
The American Renaissance Conference — which calls Montgomery Bell State Park its "home away from home" — provides yet another example of the rise of hate and extremism in Tennessee. It may even offer a clue about why Tennessee appears to have become a magnet for groups such as the Patriot Front and the neo-Nazi Goyim Defense League.
Those activities have become the focus of NewsChannel 5's ongoing "Hate Comes to Main Street" investigation.
Trying to avoid a clash that erupted during one of the group's earlier visits to Montgomery Bell, park rangers had set up a security perimeter, confining the protesters to the back side of the lodge, separated from the conference by a locked gate.
There, the ragtag group of protesters spotted conference attendees taking a break on a balcony. With the aid of a bullhorn, they again made their voices heard.
“Follow your leader," one of the organizers called out in a sing-song chant, inviting his fellow protesters to respond in kind.
“Follow your leader.”
"Shoot yourself like Adolph Hitler."
"Shoot yourself like Adolph Hitler."
One of the protesters carried an Antifa flag. Most were dressed in all black, their faces covered with black masks to avoid retaliation from the people they came to confront.
"Basically, they invite some of the worst neo-Nazi hate groups into this park every single year to rally,” said a protest leader, who identified himself only as “X” and said he was from nearby Columbia, Tenn.
“You can see one of them right there,” X said, pointing to someone who had just reappeared on the balcony.
I asked, “In your mind, what's the difference between this and a KKK rally?"
"Oh, there is no difference – they’re the same people,” he answered.
Inside the conference
Pulling away from the protesters, we headed over to the conference center to talk to the man who heads the annual event.
Jared Taylor met us at the main entrance, insisting that NewsChannel 5 could come inside only if we agreed not to take video of any of the participants' faces.
“It’s very important,” said Taylor, the 73-year-old conference organizer who speaks with a difficult-to-place patrician accent. “These people can lose their jobs. Their girlfriends could jilt them. I mean, that's the kind of society we live in."
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes the conference as a place “where racist intellectuals rub shoulders with Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists.”
Out in the parking lot, NewsChannel 5 had spotted cars and trucks from Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. One truck carried decals that resembled a Border Patrol vehicle, although the labeling used a derogatory term for women.
Sitting down on the balcony where the protesters had earlier spotted conference attendees, I asked Taylor how he would describe the people who had shelled out $200 each to attend.
"These are smart, observant, thoughtful Americans who see that our country is going in the wrong direction and has been going in the wrong direction for decades,” Taylor said.
I noted, “Your critics say you use being smart, being intellectual, as a cover for racism."
"What is racism, for heaven’s sake?" he shot back.
"Do you not know what racism is?"
"Well, nobody can really define it in any sensible, consistent way."
Taylor heads the nonprofit New Century Foundation, which operates the American Renaissance website and conference. The website promotes articles like: "How Thousands of Black Behaviors Opened My Eyes."
Video later posted by the group showed white-nationalist writer Kevin DeAnna, appearing under one of his pseudonyms, “Gregory Hood,” telling the conference that the group's job is “presenting research… presenting arguments that people with power can use."
"They don’t need to admit that they got it from us," he added.
Leaked emails obtained by SPLC show Taylor’s website was often privately promoted by Trump adviser Stephen Miller when he was a young Senate aide.
As described by the Anti-Defamation League, the American Renaissance website “promotes pseudoscientific studies that attempt to demonstrate the intellectual and cultural superiority of Whites and publishes articles on the supposed decline of American society because of integrationist social policies.”
“Did you realize that the colonies of bacteria in your mouth are different depending upon the race of the person?” Taylor asked me.
His point was that the races are biologically different — which ignored the fact that, according to science, oral bacteria are also different for men and women.
Yet, no one is arguing for a separation of the sexes.
A suit-and-tie KKK rally?
"What's the difference between what's happening here and a KKK rally?" I asked.
Taylor, a Yale graduate, claimed ignorance.
"I've never been to a KKK rally. I couldn't tell you."
"Isn't the message the same, though?"
"I have no idea. I've never been to one."
But our NewsChannel 5 investigation discovered there is ample evidence of ties between Taylor and other extremists.
“Do you consider the Proud Boys to be your allies?” I asked Taylor.
“I don’t know anything about the Proud Boys,” he claimed.
“How about the Patriot Front?"
"They do their thing. I do mine."
But leaked video obtained by the activist group Unicorn Riot shows Taylor meeting at the 2021 conference at Montgomery Bell with Thomas Rousseau, the head of the Patriot Front.
Patriot Front is the khaki-wearing extremist group known for plastering communities, including the Nashville area, with their white supremacist slogans.
In fact, after the interview with Taylor, NewsChannel 5 discovered that one of the people we had captured on video outside the conference center was Rousseau, the Patriot Front leader. On the Telegram messaging app, Patriot Front later posted a group photo of Rousseau at the conference, along with 14 other men whose faces were blurred.
“Members operated a table, distributed large amounts of literature, and spoke with numerous supporters,” the caption read. “The event was a candid space for free speech in which Patriot Front's actions and ideals could be discussed openly and articulately.”
I also had questions for Jared Taylor about his ties to neo-Nazis.
“I don't even know a neo-Nazi,” he claimed.
But among this year's speakers was Austrian Martin Sellner, a one-time neo-Nazi who plastered swastikas on a synagogue in 2006.
After some 50 people were killed at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019, emails showed Sellner had been in contact with the shooter. Although he was never charged with any wrongdoing, Sellner was barred from entering the U.S.
Appearing at the American Renaissance Conference by video, Sellner advocated for what he calls "remigration," the forced deportation of certain nonwhite immigrants from Europe and the United States. Critics have said his ideas amount to "ethnic cleansing."
"I have a dream — and it involves planes, ships and buses," the right-wing activist said, mimicking the historic speech of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breaking into a broad grin. He quickly added, "I always wanted to say this line in front of an American audience."
Such efforts, Sneller argued in a video posted after the conference, should include people from Hispanic countries.
"They have amazing foods, they're Catholic — I like both of it. But still I would not want them to replace my indigenous population of Austria," he continued. "If I want Mexican culture, I can go to Mexico — don't need to go to the United States for that."
That line drew applause from conference attendees.
Still, Sellner urged the group to temper their public pronouncements so that their ideas are "radical enough to shift the Overton Window and break the consensus," while being "popular enough to even convince your own grandma."
In the video posted online, American Renaissance appeared to have edited out at least one section of Sellner's speech where he was discussing "the browning of America."
Also among the speakers was Guido Taietti, a high-ranking figure in Italy's neo-fascist CasaPound movement.
“Martin Sellner and Guido Taietti are not just fringe figures," said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, in a statement released prior to the conference.
"They represent a violent ideology that has fueled hate crimes and terror attacks globally. They have repeatedly propagated ideologies of hate that have directly led to violence."
Other controversial speakers over the years have included Nick Fuentes, the hate-mongering podcaster who has declared that "Hitler was a pedophile and kind of a pagan," but "he was also really f***ing cool."
Yet, ask Jared Taylor about those unsavory connections, and he will insist that he and his conference are just misunderstood.
"You've read something in the Southern Poverty Law Center," he told NewsChannel 5 Investigates. "They say this is a gathering of Ku Klux Klansmen, neo-Nazis, white supremacists — that is complete baloney."
What does Jared Taylor want?
Like other people at the American Renaissance Conference, Jared Taylor argues for a separation of the races — where White Americans are not reminded of slavery, segregation or the fact that racism still exists.
"If leftists were consistent,” he continued, “they would be perfectly happy to say, 'yes, you White people, you torment all of these nonwhites' — of course, we do not."
I interrupted, "But White people did!"
“Well, hold on. Why can't you let me finish? Please."
Again, I noted, "You keep wanting to gloss over the history."
"I'm not denying the history at all. What have I glossed over? Of course, there's been slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, lynching. I'm not denying any of that. Don't put words in my mouth."
Yet, when I pressed Taylor on how he and others at this conference would separate the races, he was at first short on specifics.
I asked, "If you want that White-only land, why don't you go find somewhere else to live?"
"What do you mean ‘find someplace else to live’?" He seemed confused.
I continued, "Where do you want the people of color to go?"
"I don't want them to go anywhere."
"So, it sounds like you're advocating for something that you have no idea how it would work."
"Oh, I have a good idea how it would work."
"You just told me you didn't."
“Well, the practicalities of it,” Taylor tried to explain.
Then, he got to his solution: “I think it's entirely possible that an American state might secede. There is a considerable secessionist movement all around the country today."
"So, you are in favor of secession? Breaking up the United States?"
"I'm a believer in separation."
Then, as we prepared to head out of the park, NewsChannel 5 discovered the protesters had attempted to get closer to the main entrance, hoping to confront conference attendees more directly. I approached an organizer who identified himself only as “Big Z.”
“So, you're wanting to go down to the lodge?”
"We are wanting to go anywhere on public property where we are constitutionally allowed to go, and they are inhibiting that," ” Big Z explained.
"But, yes, specifically we would like to go down towards the lodge where they are expressing their speech, and we would like to likewise express our own."
Yet, as I watched the protesters' determination, I was reminded of Jared Taylor's own determination and his insistence that his group is wearing down the resistance.
"I think they've kind of given up,” Taylor said. “I mean, we are going to be back here — whether they like it or not."
Big Z responded that Taylor is not their audience.
"Yeah, we're not going to change Jared Taylor's mind, he's not going to change ours. That's not why we are here," he explained.
"We are here to let the public know that this will not stand in our state of Tennessee.”
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Do you have information that would help me with my investigation? Send me your tips: phil.williams@newschannel5.com
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