Women remove racist 'garbage' after Patriot Front walks through downtown Tallahassee

When Margaret Moore saw on Reddit that white nationalists were demonstrating in Tallahassee , she got in her car and headed downtown.

"Our city can't be used as a backdrop for recruitment and propaganda of something that has the potential to literally kill," Moore said.

Moore, a member of the Tallahassee Community Action Committee, used the videos the white supremacist hate group, called Patriot Front, posted on social media, including drone footage, to identify the route they walked.

"Knowing about what I know about hate groups, they leave their garbage everywhere. They leave their signage everywhere. So I thought to myself, we've got to retrace their steps," Moore said.

Moore said she was maybe five minutes behind them and saw the stickers on College Avenue, in Cascades Park and on Duval Street. Light poles downtown were littered with racist propaganda that said slogans like"Nationalist Lifestyle" and "White N Radical."

At first she tried to peel the stickers off with her fingernails. Later, Moore and a friend came up with a way to soak the stickers with water from a water bottle and use a library card to scrape them off.

Moore's friend, Madeline Kopka, didn't think twice about taking the stickers down.

"I had my knife in my car, so I was like, 'Bye, that's not gonna stay up,'" she said.

On Saturday, members of the Texas-based white supremacist and neo-fascist hate group Patriot Front were spotted in Florida's capital city. The 20-or-so men were dressed in khakis and wearing white balaclavas covering their faces while toting their hate group's flag and the Confederate flag.

The group walked through the downtown market, then on Monroe Street and through Cascades Park and paused on the Cascades Connector bridge to hang banners that said "American spirit European blood" and "No more foreign wars."

The men, taking drone footage of their walk, also stopped in front of the Old Capitol building for photos.

In a statement, Mayor John Dailey denounced Patriot Front and their demonstration downtown.

"I unequivocally condemn white nationalism in all its forms. Hate has no place in Tallahassee," Dailey said.

State Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell agreed.

"They can report back to their Trump-supporting founder that Tallahassee is a great town that represents a great state, and their ideas have no place here," she said.

A Tallahassee Police Department watch commander and Capitol Police officer said they did not make contact with Patriot Front. Capitol Police just monitored them as they took a photo in front of the Old Capitol, the officer said.

"It makes me uncomfortable that they were here," Kopka said

What is Patriot Front?

Patriot Front stems from another group, Vanguard America, and was created after 2017’s Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which one woman was killed after a white supremacist plowed his car into a group of counter-protesters.

The group is known for holding “flash demonstrations," where they hand out flyers and handbills in public, which they use for propaganda videos, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

"Patriot Front espouses racism, antisemitism and intolerance under the guise of preserving the ethnic and cultural origins of their European ancestors," ADL Vice President Oren Segal told USA TODAY in 2022. "They essentially believe that this is their country and they need to fight for the perception of what it was."

On Saturday, in videos posted on social media, a Patriot Front member describes what their experience was like walking in downtown Tallahassee.

"Handed out some flyers, had a warm reception, no hecklers, it's been a good day so far, reclaim America," says a man in a baby blue tank top wearing a white balaclava.

In another video, the man states they're in Tallahassee to "occupy a little bit of space."

The videos include drone shots of the group standing in downtown in front of the Larson Building, waving to cars that occasionally honk back and speaking with people, including one who gives them a thumbs up.

"That's my fear, that they feel welcome, and I want them to know they are not welcome, and there are more people who feel like us than feel like them," Moore said.

Patriot Front back in Tallahassee

Two years ago, videos were leaked of a dozen or so Patriot Front members practicing military-style drills at Williams Landing on Lake Talquin and routine calisthenics at Lafayette Park near Ingleside Drive and Gadsden Street.

Patriot Front’s activities — and their private communications and videos — came to light after the alternative media collective known as Unicorn Riot published 400 gigabytes of data leaked from its chat servers. The data included nearly 50 hours of video footage from around the country, including dozens of files from the Tallahassee gathering, which happened Oct. 15-17, 2022.

This year, Patriot Front has been active across the country, holding demonstrations in West Virginia, New York, and most recently, Nashville, Tennessee.

The weekend after the Fourth of July, the hate group marched in downtown Nashville, shouting "Sieg Heil."

Patriot Front was responsible for 60% of the white nationalist propaganda recorded in the country in 2023, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Patriot Front began adding more explicit antisemitic phrases into their propaganda, and the group distributed hate literature on at least 431 occasions in 2023, making up 38 percent of the year’s antisemitic propaganda incidents , according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Florida recently passed several bills cracking down on antisemitism. This year, the Legislature passed bills to increase security at Jewish day schools , require the state to observe "Holocaust Remembrance Day," and define antisemitism in Florida law with language developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance .

The local Democratic party condemned the demonstration.

The USA TODAY NETWORK - Florida reached out to the governor's office and Evan Power, the head of the Republican Party of Florida and the local party chapter, for comment. Power reposted a post on X on Saturday that alleged the Patriot Front members were fake.

"I see the Florida Democrats have resorted to fake and staged nazis again," wrote Brandon Leslie, founder of conservative media outlet Florida's Voice.

"That is the final nail in the 'Florida is in play' coffin," Power wrote with the repost, apparently referring to recent polls that show a tighter race between former Republican President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Sean Thomas, the chair of Leon County's Students for Kamala, fired back on X. "Don't you love party leadership that upholds conspiracy theories and does not speak out against such a hate movement but rather entertains it?"

Ana Goñi-Lessan , state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at agonilessan@gannett.com .

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Women remove racist 'garbage' after Patriot Front walks through downtown Tallahassee