By Clint Confehr
Civil rights activists continue their response to issues arising from the white lives matter demonstration in Shelbyville and white supremacists’ abandoned protest in Murfreesboro last year.
“Now Murfreesboro Loves, Murfreesboro JUMPers and Shelbyville Loves are having another rally in Shelbyville, the town that faced down a white supremacist rally on Oct. 28,” Shelbyville Loves spokesman David Clark says.
“This rally will be on the sidewalk in front of Walmart,” 1880 N. Main St., Shelbyville, Saturday, Feb 17 at 10:30 a.m., Clark says. “Threats from the Trump Administration and his agenda in Congress are direct threats to half … of Shelbyville.”
Bedford County has a significant Hispanic population. Local leaders say Shelbyville’s reputation for having a sizable Somali population is outdated as many Somalis have moved.
Clark and other activists “are … with other groups under similar attack,” he says. He’s with Indivisible TN-6, “a multi-issue advocacy group.”
Shelbyville Loves started “as a peaceful response to the white supremacists protest in Shelbyville,” Clark said. “We then set about organizing this diverse community in such a manner that allows that diversity to grow and flourish. We are all volunteers…”
Activists held a similar demonstration Feb. 3 at Rutherford County’s Courthouse in Murfreesboro.
“On a cold midwinter Saturday morning with just six days notice, 200 people gathered on the courthouse steps in protest of the Trump Administration’s lack of leadership on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and the absence of a clean Dreamers bill in Congress,” Clark said.
Dreamers are described by The New York Times as DACA beneficiaries looking for a path to American citizenship. Reuters reports Congress approved a spending bill to end a government shutdown without stabilizing Dreamers’ legal status.
