There Goes the Neighborhood is a weekly series from Imagine 2050 staff highlighting upcoming nativist events.
This week, an anti-Muslim leader speaks in Texas and the Remembrance Project launches a new effort.
Today, November 4, Tea Party group Grassroots America We the People will hold a lunch event in Tyler, Texas featuring Trayce Bradford of the Texas Eagle Forum (TEF). Bradford became president of the Texas Eagle Forum, the Texas branch of the long-running, far-right Christian organization Eagle Forum, earlier this year. Previously, she was leader of the Dallas-area TEF chapter as well as the group’s National Security Director. In the latter role, Bradford worked to pass needless and bigoted anti-Shariah legislation known as “American Laws for American Courts.”
In recent years, Bradford and other activists failed to pass such legislation in Texas, but remain undeterred. According to an announcement of today’s event on Grassroots We the People’s website, Bradford will discuss TEF’s 2017 legislative priorities, “including another effort to finally pass American Laws for American Courts in Texas.”
Map of TRP’s New York Remembrance Walk route
On Saturday, November 5, anti-immigrant group The Remembrance Project (TRP) will hold its first annual “Remembrance Walk” with announced locations in Houston, Texas; Newport Beach, California; and New York City. The walk is an evolution of the “National Remembrance Day” TRP has organized in past years, typically during the first weekend of November. This year’s iteration will seek to build upon the considerable visibility TRP has gained during this election season—one that began with TRP National Director Maria Espinoza’s spectacularly unsuccessful Congressional bid and concluded with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaking at TRP’s first national conference in September.
TRP activists were also given primetime speaking slots during this summer’s Republican National Convention. TRP’s New York activists, in particular, will seek more television coverage. A map promoting tomorrow’s walk in the Big Apple indicates participants will visit five major television news headquarters before concluding their trek at Trump Tower.
Finally, on Wednesday, November 9, the Monroe County Public Library will host a forum on refugee resettlement in Bloomington, Indiana. The library notes the forum will cover “both sides of this often divisive issue,” but neglects to mention the extremist backgrounds of two participants: James Simpson and Don Barnett. Simpson rose to prominence on the anti-refugee speakers circuit in 2015 after the anti-Muslim think tank Center for Security Policy published his e-book, The Red-Green Axis: Refugees, Immigration and the Agenda to Erase America. Barnett is a fellow at the anti-immigrant think tank Center for Immigration Studies, where he focuses on refugee issues. Both Simpson and Barnett deride refugees as a threat and have addressed local chapters of the anti-Muslim grassroots group ACT for America this year.
Additional information on these nativist events and others can be found in the map below. A red star indicates events scheduled for next week.
Know of any nativist events not located on this map? Please contact us or fill out this form: