Source: WRAL
It only took a few days after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election for a white supremacist hate group to feel comfortable enough to hang up signs in downtown Durham and other parts of the city, WRAL reported.
Authorities are now investigating after signs linked to the Patriot Front hate group were found on the American Tobacco Campus (ATC) and other parts of Durham just four days after the election.
A large banner that was hung from a parking garage at the ATC said “Strong Families, Strong Nations” with a link to the Patriot Front website. The sign was quickly removed once officials there were notified.
The Southern Poverty Law Center says that Patriot Front is a “white nationalist hate group that broke off from Vanguard America in the aftermath of the deadly ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.” The organization is “image-obsessed” and has “rehabilitated the explicitly fascist agenda of Vanguard America with garish patriotism.”
After the ATC banner was removed, other banners were found throughout the day, including by some people driving on Interstate 40.
According to WRAL, ATC surveillance cameras captured a man holding the banner in the area just minutes before the same banner was seen hanging off the parking garage.
“There is no place for hate at the American Tobacco Campus,” said ATC General Manager Pete McClure.
One person who saw the signs and didn’t want to be identified told WRAL, “I find it scary, and it worries me.” Others who spoke to the TV station said they saw the men captured on surveillance footage placing more signs around the downtown area.
“It is a little scary to kind of see it around, and you’re thinking okay that’s why, when you do see those sort of things, you’ve got to call it out and say ‘that’s not what anybody here stands for,'” another witness said.
ATC told WRAL they have been working with Durham police during the investigation.
Another Patriot Front sign was spotted the next morning on Interstate 40 East in Raleigh. Police said they are investigating and they’re unsure if the same men are responsible for putting up the sign in Raleigh.
