Patriot Front and What Once Was Chocolate City

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist

08 Jul 2026

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A black passenger is surrounded by members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front on the Washington Metro. Photo / Finn Gomez Getty Images

“The Patriot Front’s bold incursions into U.S. cities are a sign of their burgeoning strength and of the weakness of Black movement politics.”

“Our people, born to this nation of our European race, must reforge themselves as a new collective capable of asserting our right to cultural independence.” - Patriot Front website

The story behind the now iconic photos of Black and brown Washington, DC, commuters who were forced to travel with Patriot Front white supremacists on the metro system begins almost 10 years ago. The Unite the Right rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11 and 12 in 2017 was a turning point for public displays of white nationalism. Fresh off the exhilaration of Donald Trump’s inauguration, and angry that the city council voted to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, thousands of white supremacist groups such as Vanguard America gathered there in solidarity with one another. On the evening of August 11, they held a torchlit march and proclaimed, “white lives matter” and “Jews will not replace us.”

The following day they marched again and were confronted by an even larger group of counterprotesters. One of the white supremacists drove a car into the crowd and killed a young woman named Heather Heyer.

Donald Trump condemned hatred, violence, and bigotry “on many sides” when all of those characteristics appeared on only one side. After he failed to condemn the white supremacist groups, he later added, “You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”

Despite his belated efforts to condemn those who were in fact violent and attempting to equate the actions of people who behaved quite differently from each other, the damage to his followers was done.

Prior to the events in Charlottesville, 2017 was the heyday of what was referred to as the “alt-right” but which was actually the same old racist right that always existed but which was packaged and marketed to become acceptable to white people outside of that echo chamber. They may be called the Tea Party as in the early 2000s or an alt-right or MAGA, but they are all the same, white nationalist groups under slightly different guises.

Charlottesville was a game changer, but not in the way that Vanguard America and other organizers hoped. They could not recover from the public relations nightmare of killing a young white woman and many of their members were exposed in the media and then faced negative consequences such as job loss and family estrangement. The grand opening was a flop for this movement but one member snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

Thomas Rousseau was an 18-year-old Vanguard America member who split from that organization and formed Patriot Front in the wake of the Charlottesville public relations debacle. He figured out that grand spectacles may have felt good but they also attracted opposition and were bad for his brand.

Patriot Front began to move a little differently post-Charlottesville. In order to keep from being recognized, its members began to appear only with their faces covered. To prevent counterprotests, they arrived at their destinations unannounced and for short periods of time. They arrived unexpectedly in flash mob fashion and even traveled by hiding in rented trucks. They marched around, gave speeches about being proud white people, and would then disappear.

Using U-Haul and Penske trucks to carry human beings also brought too much attention. The attempt to disrupt a Pride march in Idaho resulted in the arrest of Rousseau and others in 2022. What to do to arrive in Washington DC on July 4, 2026? Take public transportation, and therein lies another tale.

Washington, DC, was once known as the Chocolate City, with a population that was 70% Black, but which is now just 43% Black. Gentrification by whites and an increased immigrant population are responsible for the demographic and political change. Patriot Front would not have dared to show up in the old Washington, DC, where they would have been outnumbered by angry Black people. Now they move around freely and feel a sense of impunity.

Those feelings are borne of the reality of Black displacement and the loss of political power. Movement politics is reactive, as activists and organizers respond to local police killings or ICE killings in Minnesota but without a cohesive strategy. There is more coordination of forces among the right wing, who now have a friendly government in Washington. Patriot Front members run businesses in order to “establish an independent ecosystem of businesses that can employ Patriot Front members and insulate them from consequences if their involvement in the group is exposed.”

While Washington, DC, police constantly monitor Black youth and impose curfews, white racists can march openly, and the response shows a complete lack of concern for the well-being of half the people in their district.

“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is tracking First Amendment activities that occurred this morning in the Eastern Market neighborhood. MPD recognizes the rights of individuals to peacefully express their views and remains committed to maintaining public safety and security for DC residents and visitors.”

Of course, the outgoing mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, hardly uttered any opposition to Trump taking over the local police department. It isn’t surprising that Patriot Force no longer feels the need to hide in trucks. They know their members can be masked and travel in their hundreds in the nation’s capitol without any fear of being hindered.

They have also learned a lesson from their brethren who in 2025 dropped a banner from a highway overpass in Lincoln Heights, Ohio that read, “America for the White Man” and also displayed flags adorned with swastikas. Lincoln Heights is a small and mostly Black town located near Cincinnati. The racists determined, correctly, that the police would protect them and they did. But the Black residents used the rights of an open carry state to patrol their streets while armed.

They did so for weeks, while elected officials dithered and held peace rallies; the Black people of Lincoln Heights made clear that white supremacist groups should think twice before showing up again. The once chocolate but now cafe au lait District of Columbia cannot put up such a show of force. Political leaders there outdo one another in their promises to criminalize Black youth for being Black while labeling white supremacist marches as “First Amendment activity.”

It is important to follow Lincoln Heights and not Washington, DC. Patriot Front has a propaganda formula that can work if there is no mass movement to oppose them. Let Washington be Chocolate City again, where racist groups should be afraid to show their faces, even if they are masked.

Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley@blackagendareport.com.