White Supremacist Is Charged in 2019 Arson at Tennessee Civil Rights Landmark
A Tennessee man with ties to several white supremacist groups has been charged with setting a fire in 2019 that destroyed the offices of a social justice center connected with Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., according to court records.
In a federal criminal complaint that was unsealed on April 24, the F.B.I. said that the man, Regan Prater, 27, set fire to the main offices of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tenn., near Knoxville, and spray-painted an Iron Guard cross on the pavement outside.
The symbol originated with fascists in Romania in the 1920s and 1930s, according to the Anti-Defamation League. It has more recently been used by white supremacists, including one who murdered 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand in 2019.
Investigators in Tennessee said that Mr. Prater, of Tullahoma, took credit for the arson while chatting with an informant on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app that he used to communicate with other white supremacists.
'I didn't admit that, but dots can be connected,' Mr. Prater wrote to the informant when asked if he had set the fire, according to the complaint.
He then gave details about how he had started the blaze, telling the informant, 'It was a sparkler bomb and some Napalm.'
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