CHICAGO ā Amid the American flags and Trump 2020 posters at the U.S. Capitol during last week's insurrection were far more sinister symbols: A man walking the halls of Congress carrying a Confederate flag. Banners proclaiming white supremacy and anti-government extremism. A makeshift noose and gallows ominously erected outside.
In many ways this hate-filled display was the culmination of many others over the past few years, including the deadly 2017 āUnite the Rightā rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that gathered extremist factions from across the country under a single banner.
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āThese displays of white supremacy are not new,ā said Lecia Brooks, chief of staff of the Southern Poverty Law Center. āNow itās just reached a fever pitch.ā
Extremist groups, including the pro-Trump, far-right, anti-government Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, a loose anti-government network that's part of the militia movement, were among those descending on the halls of power on Jan. 6.
The hateful imagery included an anti-Semitic āCamp Auschwitzā sweatshirt created years ago by white supremacists, who sold them on the now-defunct website Aryanwear, said Aryeh Tuchman, associate director for the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism.
Also among the rioters were members of Groyper Army, a loose network of white nationalists, the white supremacist New Jersey European Heritage Association, and the far-right extremist Proud Boys, along with other known white supremacists, Tuchman said. While not all the anti-government groups were explicitly white supremacist, Tuchman said many support white supremacist beliefs.
āAnyone who flies a Confederate flag, even if they claim itās about heritage and not hate, we need to understand that it is a symbol of white supremacy,ā Tuchman said.
Brooks said it was also important to note the demographics of the riotous crowd, which was overwhelmingly white. Within that context, even more traditional symbols of American patriotism, like the American flag, or political preference, like Trump 2020 signs, served to give the symbols of hate a pass.
āYou can wrap yourself in the American flag and call yourself a patriot and say youāre acting on behalf of the country, that youāre serving to protect the country. ā¦ But what America were you standing up for?" she asked.
āOne that continues to support and advance white supremacy? Or one that welcomes and embraces a multiracial, inclusive democracy? Thatās the difference.ā
The proliferation of white supremacist symbolism has a long history, with two clear peaks in the civil rights efforts following Reconstruction and during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Brooks said. Now, as the U.S. reckons with systemic racism following the police killing of George Floyd, she said Confederate symbols have been displayed more prominently, including at smaller-scale white supremacist rallies and by counterprotesters carrying Confederate flags at Black Lives Matter gatherings across the country.
āThis is a response, and itās not a new response,ā Brooks said. āEvery time there is progress in asserting civil rights, thereās a backlash. Confederate iconography is a means to reassert white supremacy when it is thought to be threatened.ā
Confederate flags and white supremacist symbols were also present at the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville that turned deadly after a car mowed into counterprotesters. The rally, which left one counterprotester dead, brought several neo-Nazi, white supremacist and related groups together, much like the Capitol insurrection, Brooks said.
āThis merging of groups you see in Charlottesville and that you saw at the Capitol last week doesnāt usually happen,ā she said. āBut theyāre desperate. They are convinced that theyāre this grave minority that is being threatened and needs to stick together and rally under the moniker of hatred.ā
Karen Cox, a historian of the American South and Confederate symbols, said the phenomenon echoes the so-called āLost Causeā mythology, the pseudo-historical ideology that the cause of the Confederacy during the Civil War was just and heroic ā an assertion that lives on in the hearts of many who tote the Confederate flag today.
She said for many extremists, including those present at the Capitol insurrection, President Donald Trumpās election loss has become a new āLost Cause" of sorts.
āThis is their new āLost Cause' and a continuation of the original āLost Cause,'ā she said. āTheyāve lost, but they hold onto that (Confederate) flag to show that they still feel justified."
āSame thing here. āWe lost this election, but our cause was just.ā And as long as they still hold onto this āLost Cause,' these symbols arenāt going away.ā
āWe are 150 years after the Civil War and people are still waving that flag,ā Cox added. āThis has been here for so long, itās going to take a long time to go away ā if it can.ā
As rioters besieged Capitol Hill, demonstrations flared at statehouses across the country. An internal FBI bulletin has warned of plans for armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington D.C., in the days leading up to President-elect Joe Bidenās inauguration.
Brooks said she worries the rampage at the Capitol and proliferation of white supremacist symbols will encourage similar actions at state capitals.
āThe insurrection last week helped embolden and radicalize people in such a way that itās going to be even more threatening," she said. "This risk of an insurrection like this happening again is hanging over us.ā
Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland was inside the Capitol building as the violent mob made its way inside. Raskin, who is Jewish, chairs the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in Congress and has sat through multiple hearings about the dangers of violent white supremacy. He said he was shocked by the āopen manifestations of pro-racist and pro-Nazi ideology.ā
āThis massive attack on the Capitol and invasion of the Congress would be shocking and criminal enough even if these people had no racist or anti-Semitic intent at all,ā he said. āBut when you add in the elements of violent white extremism, you can see how profoundly dangerous this is to the future of our country.ā
Tuchman said he is encouraged by the disgust many Americans have expressed and hopes it will make such symbols less publicly acceptable. But he said these images hold a power that may continue to menace the nation's democracy.
āImages can encapsulate the beliefs of extremist movements,ā he said. āThey can popularize them. ... Symbols can be the entryway into extremism and radicalization.ā
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Fernando and Nasir are members of the Associated Pressā Race and Ethnicity team. Follow Fernando on Twitter at https://twitter.com/christinetfern. Follow Nasir on Twitter at https://twitter.com/noreensnasir.