Tennessee Congressional Candidate’s ‘Make America White Again’ Billboards Taken Down

By Sameer Rao Jun 24, 2016

A billboard for a Tennessee congressional candidate’s campaign that read "Make America White Again" was removed less than a day after it was put up.

Chattanooga NBC affiliate WRCB reported yesterday (June 23) that independent candidate Rick Tyler provoked controversy with the aforementioned billboard and others advertising his campaign for Tennessee’s 3rd congressional district seat. Another billboard featured the White House surrounded and topped by Confederate flags, with Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous words, "I have a dream," above the image. The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported that the billboard company owner took them down Wednesday (June 22).

Tyler attempted to justify the billboards on his campaign website, saying that "the cunning globalist/Marxist social engineers have succeeded in destroying that great bulwark against statist tyranny…the White American super majority." He asked for financial support to put up new billboards opposing gay marriage, Muslim immigration and relationships between people of different races. 

He insisted to WRCB that he does not hate people of color, but simply wants to return to the "1960s, ‘Ozzie and Harriet,’ ‘Leave it to Beaver’ time when there were no break-ins, no violent crime, no mass immigration."

Local officials criticized the billboards’ messaging. "He doesn’t need to lead a pack of dogs," Tennessee House Minority Leader Joe Towns told The Times Free Press, when asked if Tyler is fit to serve the state.