Shouting Racial Slurs, Neo-Nazi Marchers Shock Ohio’s Capital

The demonstration in Columbus on Saturday, part of a recent pattern of white supremacist incidents in the country, was condemned by officials around the state.

A downtown street is partially obscured by shadows. 

Downtown Columbus, Ohio. The white supremacist marchers on Saturday appeared to number only about a dozen people.Credit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

Michael Corkery

By Michael Corkery

Nov. 18, 2024, 12:45 p.m. ET

Officials in Columbus, Ohio, and across the nation condemned a small group of people who marched through a part of the city on Saturday carrying Nazi flags and shouting racial slurs and expressions of white power.

The marchers appeared to number only about a dozen people, but the invective they yelled and the large swastika symbols they bore seemed to achieve their goal of rattling not just people in Columbus, but a wider audience online.

Videos of the neo-Nazi marchers in the Short North neighborhood, known for its arts district of restaurants and galleries, spread quickly on social media, and drew swift denunciations from city and state officials and the White House.

“Neo-Nazis — their faces hidden behind red masks — roamed streets in Columbus today, carrying Nazi flags and spewing vile and racist speech against people of color and Jews,” Gov. Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio, said in a statement posted on social media. “There is no place in this state for hate, bigotry, antisemitism or violence, and we must denounce it wherever we see it.”

The Anti-Defamation League said that the Columbus event fit a recent pattern of white supremacist incidents, hundreds of which have taken place across the country over the past 18 months.

The marches tend to be small, unannounced so as to avoid attracting counterprotesters, and tailor-made for social media, said Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism.

“At the end of day, they want to create fear and anxiety in communities and get a photo op,” Mr. Segal said in an interview on Sunday.

Mr. Segal, whose staff monitors white supremacy activity nationwide, said that a newly formed white supremacist group called Hate Club, based in St. Louis, had claimed responsibility for the march on Saturday in Columbus, and that the protest might have been inspired in part by a rivalry with another hate group based in Ohio.

Mr. Segal said that “flash” events like the one in Columbus tended to involve blatant symbols of hate like the flags with swastikas that the men carried. The symbols are intended for maximum shock value among the general public, he said, but are also used to gain credibility among other white supremacist groups.

“This sickening display comes during a tragic rise in antisemitic rhetoric and violence that is a crises the American people should all come together against,” a White House spokesman, Andrew Bates, said in a statement about the Columbus marchers.

No arrests were made in connection with the demonstration on Saturday.

The Columbus Police said in a statement that they were initially told the marchers were “armed with firearms” and “may have been in a physical altercation with civilians in the area.”

When the police arrived on the scene, the group of marchers left the area in a van, Sgt. Joe Albert said in the statement. The police stopped the van a short distance away and detained many of the people inside. But it was determined that an assault had not taken place, and the marchers were released.

Referring to the marchers, Shannon Hardin, president of the Columbus City Council, wrote on social media, “This community rejects their pathetic efforts to promote fear and hate.” He tied the incident to Donald J. Trump’s election. “I am sorry that the president-elect has emboldened these creeps,” Mr. Hardin, a Democrat, said in a post.

Mr. Trump has used language for years that critics say fuels white supremacist groups. He has consistently offered only a mild rebuke to the racial violence that occurred at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, and he has praised the Jan. 6 rioters, many of whom were members of far-right groups.

This year, John Kelly, his former chief of staff, said Mr. Trump had told him that “Hitler did some good things.” In May, Mr. Trump briefly posted a video on Truth Social featuring an image that referred to “the creation of a unified Reich” before taking it down.

Mr. Trump has continually disavowed any association with such groups. “President Trump is backed by Latinos, Black voters, union workers, angel moms, law enforcement officers, border patrol agents and Americans of all faiths,” Karoline Leavitt, Mr. Trump’s campaign spokeswoman and the incoming White House press secretary, has said. “President Trump will be a president for all Americans.”

The Columbus incident followed a Nazi demonstration in Michigan earlier this month.

Nazi demonstrators stood on Nov. 9 outside an American Legion Post in Howell, Mich., where a community theater group was performing a production of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

Howell, a city between Lansing and Detroit, has had a history of white supremacy and racism. In the 1970s, a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan hosted rallies for fellow Klansmen at his farm just outside the city limits.

A group of white supremacists marched through town in July, shouting “We love Hitler” and “We love Trump.”

The next month, Mr. Trump held a campaign event in Howell alongside the county sheriff. Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign criticized Mr. Trump for choosing the location, given the area’s history. Mr. Trump noted that President Biden had visited Howell in 2021.

During the first act of the Anne Frank production, the theater staff became aware of the Nazi demonstrators, according to an account of the incident on the Fowlerville Community Theater’s Facebook page.

Although some cast members were shaken, the account said, they finished the performance.

“This production centers on real people who lost their lives in the Holocaust,” the group said, adding: “On Saturday evening, things became even more real than we expected. The presence of protesters outside gave us a small glimpse of the fear and uncertainty felt by those in hiding.”