This summer, a white supremacist, neo-Nazi group spent time in Nashville — passing out flyers on Lower Broadway, littering the sidewalks, hanging banners from overpasses and hanging posters in public places.
A new bill in the state legislature would strengthen Tennessee law to describe those activities as a hate crime.
The Goyim Defense League stayed in Nashville for days the summer, and they are defined as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. They are a group that primarily lends their hate to the Jewish community, though the group on Broadway was screaming about the Jewish, LGBTQ and the Black community.
The hate group the Patriot Front didn’t have a permit to march in the city, but they did so anyway in early July. They were seen in Nashville as recently as this week pasting up their flyers to utility boxes. In 2024, They spray-painted their logo under the Woodland Street Bridge, which is vandalism. They also defaced the retaining wall in Brentwood on the side of Interstate 65. The Tennessee Department of Transportation had to paint over it.