Neo-Nazi leaflets were the last thing Brittany Hughes expected to encounter last Sunday while walking her dog in the rain.
She chose to leave the one on Malvey Avenue in her west Fort Worth neighborhood of Ridglea North, the first one she came across. Even though her hands were getting cold and soaked from walking, she persisted in finding additional fliers, and she ended up collecting around twenty on Locke and Kenwick avenues.
There were fliers in plastic bags with dog food or rice inside, probably to make them easier to throw from a car onto people’s front lawns.
“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” and “Stop Illegal Immigration” were among the messages. The fliers directed readers to a website associated with a “small but growing neo-Nazi group” in the vicinity of De Kalb, an East Texas city, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Hughes shared her discoveries on the NextDoor community app as soon as she returned home. Members in the community were shocked and concerned at the same time. According to Hughes, who is Hispanic, the fliers astonished and upset her.
Hughes expressed his desire to visit the neighbor’s house in the hopes that someone had recorded the incident on their Ring cameras or that others were sharing the news. “In all my years living here, I’ve never witnessed anything comparable.”
All across Fort Worth, people have been reporting similar instances recently.
Will Rogers Memorial Center had to escort a small number of people dressed in Nazi attire out of a gun expo last October. The following day, a bigger group showed there, and the police cited one of them for disruptive conduct.
During the same month, individuals donning Nazi garb vandalized over 250 vehicles at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden with anti-Semitic graffiti. A video of a comparable group eating at a Torchy’s Tacos went viral on TikTok, prompting the restaurant company to strongly denounce the incident.
According to Hector Carrillo, who chairs the Fort Worth chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, hate groups are asserting their ownership of the country. “The question of how we can undo all this ugly in our state could be defined if we also have Republican candidates running for office with anti-immigrant platforms.”
Just south of Interstate 30, along Camp Bowie Boulevard on the north side, you’ll find Ridglea North. Hughes claims that the neighborhood is home to a diverse mix of people, with the Lackland area to the west and two mostly African American neighborhoods in Como to the east.
During election season, there were signs for both Trump and Biden, according to Hughes, which could have made the neighborhood feel targeted. She believes the criminals were trying to lure white, affluent families to their website.
Based on her observations of parents wheeling strollers, couples strolling their dogs, and children playing outside, Hughes concludes that Ridglea North is a lively community. People could see and read the messages because of the high volume of foot activity.
According to her, nobody in her neighborhood has caught anything unusual on camera. She has reported the fliers to the local police officer.