The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today welcomed the response of community members to a white supremacist meeting in Dickson County, Tenn.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the New Century Foundation is a white nationalist think-tank with a history of promoting racist pseudo-science. It today began its annual American Renaissance conference at Montgomery Bell State Park in Dickson Co. In response, more than 300 faith leaders, including 67 pastors of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which was established at Montgomery Bell, wrote an open letter denouncing white supremacy and urging state officials to deny access to the park.

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“We welcome the response of faith leaders to this public display of white supremacist hate and we stand in solidarity with the local community against bigotry of any kind,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. “Although the First Amendment guarantees the right of even bigots to express their hate-filled views, it also gives people of conscience the right to speak out against them.”

Hooper added that said CAIR and the American Muslim community stand in solidarity with all those challenging antisemitism, systemic anti-Black racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, white supremacy, and all other forms of bigotry.

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