Brandishing assault weapons and fully clad in black garb with face coverings, a small band of Nazis appeared on an overpass across a busy interstate highway in northern Cincinnati shortly before rush hour on Friday afternoon, Feb. 7. They unfurled several flags bearing bright red swastikas and a large banner proclaiming “America for the White Man”. The banner, hung for all motorists to see, displayed the Nazi eagle at one end and a skull (totenkopf) at the other.
News of this vicious racist provocation spread quickly throughout the neighboring Lincoln Heights community, home to thousands of African-American residents. Within minutes a sizable mass of enraged Lincoln Heights residents came to the overpass and defiantly confronted the armed Nazis.
Vastly outnumbered by outraged residents shouting “no justice, no peace” and demanding their immediate removal, the Nazis quickly gathered up their white supremacist signs, under police protection, and literally ran to a near-by U-Haul and took off.
No violence, other than repeated use of the N-word by the fascists, ensued; but one swastika flag was grabbed and burned on the spot by angry residents. Bullets spelling out “LH’ were placed in the center of the charred remains.
After being driven out from the overpass, the Nazis, huddled illegally in their rented U-Haul truck, were escorted by a police cruiser to Lockland, a neighboring African-American community and home to hundreds of recently immigrated refugees from Mauritania. Following the police cruiser, the truck was parked on public school property directly adjacent to the Lockland School District Educational Annex building shortly before its elementary school pupils were dismissed. While there, the armed Nazis engaged in extended conversation with a police officer before eventually leaving. Neither the identity of the police officer nor the Nazis have been publicly released.
“Where were the arrests?”, asked Lincoln Heights resident Kachara Talbert, “They just let these people drive off. Y’all going to let these terrorists and racists come over here and do that, disrespect us and our heritage? Who are they [the police] here to protect and serve, because it ain’t us; it ain’t the people…America needs to stand up and stop this madness.”
Another Lincoln Heights resident, Syretha Brown, also made a passionate call for unity:
“Now is the time to unify. It is time for us to stand for each other. All of this disruption and confusion and all of the things has to subside, and we must join and build together, because if not, nobody is coming to save us.” Ms. Brown may have had the recent Nazi salute by Elon Musk, among other despicable things, in mind.
The pastor of Lincoln Heights Missionary Baptist Church, Rev. Julian Cook who led a prayer circle following the expulsion of the Nazis, had a message for the fascists: “You will not win. You may try, but we have a history of being able to push past these things, as difficult as it may be. You will not win.”
The Ohio Peace Council sharply denounced this fascist action in Cincinnati. “As someone who was born in the rubble that was Germany after the Nazis got through with it, I know what utter evil lurks behind the swastika” said Werner Lange, Chair of the OPC, “Some 50 million lives were consumed during WWII started by the Nazis. Among the war casualties were over 250,000 American soldiers killed by the Nazis. To have this Nazi symbol of genocide and terror, the swastika, publicly displayed and proudly embraced in America is an outrageous desecration of their ultimate sacrifice defending America from fascism. Those responsible for this public praise of Nazism should be charged with treason and a crime against humanity”.
Condemnations of this white supremacist provocation were also quickly issued by the Mayor of Cincinnati, the Cincinnati NAACP, the Urban League of Greater Southwestern Ohio, the Ohio Chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. The following day, the administration of Lincoln Heights stated that “Racism is ugly, and it was on display yesterday. This kind of activity has no place in Lincoln Heights or anywhere else. We are proud of the restraint our community showed in response to this demonstration.”
The condemnations included calls for unity against fascism. The Executive Director of CAIR Ohio stated that “All community leaders and public officials must take a stand against this growing movement of division and hatred nationwide”. Similarly, the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati declared that “Hate has no place in Cincinnati or anywhere else in our society”, a declaration echoed by the Cincinnati Mayor who stated that “This [fascism] is not what we stand for, and it will never be what we stand for; messages of hate like this have on place in our region.” The Cincinnati NAACP also explicitly criticized the Trump administration for creating a political climate conducive to such fascist demonstrations: “The current executive orders and actions [from Trump] have angered many and emboldened others. This is not normal and should not be accepted as such. We are stronger together and we are calling on all to unify against this behavior”.
Nevertheless, condemnation of this embrace and public display of Nazi symbolism next to an African-American community was not universal. To date, a roaring silence regarding this blatant racist provocation has come from Republican legislators, including the Ohio Governor, Ohio’s two Senators and the Ohio Congressman representing this area. A similar Nazi demonstration in Columbus right after the November 2024 election resulted in the same revealing and incriminating silence.
Community residents, however, have not remained silent. The day following the Nazi demonstration, area residents returned to the site of the crime and posted banners proclaiming “Love Wins”; one sign read “My father fought the Nazis and So Will I”. On Sunday, February 9, over 300 area residents marched to the overpass, filling the street and stopping traffic, to voice their moral outrage against the violation of human dignity there two days earlier. A community meeting on the following Monday at the Lincoln Heights Municipal Center drew hundreds of concerned residents who demanded to know, among other things, why the Nazis were not identified by the police, let alone not arrested. That evening’s regularly scheduled City Council meeting continued to hear speakers denounce the Nazis and commend the Lincoln Heights community for driving them out.
Lincoln Heights, incorporated in 1946, prides itself in being the first African-American self-governing community north of the Mason-Dixon Line. It was also the childhood home of the recently deceased famous progressive poet Nikki Giovanni, who in her poem “Brother, Brother, Brother” wrote lovingly of her life in Lincoln Heights. Expressive of her values and the community which helped shape her vision and voice is “The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr”:
His headstone said
FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST
But death is a slave’s freedom
We seek the freedom of free men
And the construction of a world
Where Martin Luther King could have lived
And preached non-violence
The spirit of Nikki Giovanni was certainly present in the mass protests against this racist provocation in her hometown; and it will continue to be until the construction of a world freed from fascism and racism is achieved.
