Stormfront white supremacist summit heads to Crossville this weekend

White supremacists from Stormfront, an online forum of more than 330,000 members, plan to be in Crossville this weekend for a conference replacing what had been billed earlier as their annual Great Smoky Mountains Summit.

Don Black, former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and the forum's founder, announced the Sept. 30 weekend event in July. 

In the time since the forum's domain hosts removed the site from the Internet. Don Black also became ill and withdrew from the event, according to Billy Roper, another prominent white supremacist, who took over plans for the conference. 

Sept. 30 is also Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Roper said the date was a coincidence. 

Stormfront's web domain was released again Friday, and the website is up and running again.

Roper waived the registration fees and began giving out the location to interested people who emailed him. 

Based on the emails, Roper insists the Stormfront summit may be the largest summit they've had. 

"I keep getting more and more e-mails and (instant messages) from more people who are coming to the replacement conference next weekend," Roper wrote in the forum. "Especially now that they know that it's free and if they've prepaid they won't be using up their 'credit' paid to Mr. Black by attending!"

Location

Though Black first advertised the event as taking place near Knoxville in the Smoky Mountains, it has since been moved further west to Crossville. 

The group plans to meet Friday night at the Beef and Barrel Restaurant and Lounge in Crossville. 

A hostess at the restaurant said they had "absolutely no comment" on the event they will host tonight and would not specify the number of those planning to attend based on the reservation.

Bruce Cannon, the restaurant owner, wrote on the restaurant's Facebook page about the event. 

"We serve the public at our will and we do not discriminate against anyone's religious racial or sexual preferences," Cannon wrote. "We do not ask nor are we allowed to ask and discriminate service based on any of these our policy is to serve our guests regardless as long as they respect our fellow customers, staff and business."

Later Friday, the restaurant ultimately cancelled the group's reservation after a series of negative online reviews.

According to an invitation, Roper sent to an online activist, the group will reconvene the next morning at Cumberland Mountain State Park.

The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office confirmed they are expecting the supremacist group to gather there Saturday. 

The Sheriff's Office said the Crossville Police Department is handling security, but they have set aside reserve officers in case they become necessary. 

Roper said Klu Klux Klan National Director Thomas Robb, Rachel Pendergraft and  Michael Hill, founder of the neo-confederate League of the South, will attend the event.

Matthew Heimbach, a Traditionalist Worker Party leader who reportedly ordered his followers to push down police barricades in Charlottesville, will also attend. 

Finding a haven in state parks

Crossville Mayor James Mayberry said the group has met in Crossville before. 

"Last year the rumor was David Duke would be here and of course he wasn't," he said.

"There were rumors it was going to be kind of a big deal and then it wasn't." 

Mayberry added that the last gathering was probably about two dozen people, and they met at a nearby state park. 

State parks seem to be the venue of choice for these meetings, particularly in Tennessee. 

Previous Stormfront gatherings have been held in Norris Dam State Park in Lake City and at a park in Sevierville. 

Other recent white supremacist events have taken place at Fall Creek Falls State Park, Davey Crockett State Park and Montgomery Bell State Park.

Eric Ward, spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, said parks do not ask for the reason for a reservation when an application is made. 

Friday he said TDEC had not confirmed whether the event was taking place or not, despite talking with local law enforcement agencies. He said no one has applied for the demonstration permit required by state park rules. 

Making noise

White supremacists groups have been getting more vocal around East Tennessee.

League of the South members recently protested in Knoxville at a rally planned by another white supremacist group. The group was protesting to support a monument honoring Confederate veterans in the downtown Knoxville neighborhood of Fort Sanders.

More than 3,000 counter-protesters met the supremacist groups, urging them to leave town. 

About a month after the protest, this week flyers for the Traditionalist Worker Party were found and torn down around the University of Tennessee. 

Roper said he hopes the conference attracts college-aged attendees. 

"We wanted to actually make this more of an activist-oriented conference and get a younger audience," Roper said, adding that the conference would feature lectures on activism, running for local office and using the Internet to dig up personal details about "adversaries and allies." 

Chris Irwin, a local attorney who coordinated counter-protests at the Fort Sanders monument in August, has begun planning a counter-protest at Cumberland Mountain State Park Saturday, which he said had gathered about 10 people by 5 p.m. on Friday.