Black-owned businesses in Martha’s Vineyard were the targets of racist signs promoting a white supremacist group, including a website link. The group Patriot Front, which advocates for a white ethnostate, placed signs in front of the properties in Oak Bluffs.
Authorities were notified of the presumed intimidation and hate crime that occurred over the Labor Day weekend, according to the district attorney for the Cape and Islands area, Robert Galibois, told reporters. According to CBS News, Galibois briefed all 22 police chiefs within the area to stay alert for any more incidents as they investigate who posted the signs.
Patriot Front was established in August 2017 after the deadly events in the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Its mission to promote and form a white ethnostate free from all other races within the U.S. makes it a “white nationalist hate group,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Its mission also extends to sharing this hate speech beyond its forum, posting flyers and banners in buildings and public spaces to increase its propaganda. The SPLC also referred to the white supremacist group as an “image-obsessed organization” with an “explicitly fascist agenda” derived from the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America before forming a new cohort.
However, District Attorney Galibois is encouraging patrons and residents of Martha’s Vineyard not to let these messages of divisiveness and hate be placed anywhere without reporting them. He said that all levels of law enforcement are “working collectively” to identify who exactly is trying to intimidate Black business owners in the area by leaving the signs on their property.
“If you observe any of these signs on public property or private property without the owner’s permission, then please notify your local police department,” shared the lawyer in a public statement.
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