Advocates for political violence among those welcomed to conference at Tennessee state park

BURNS, Tenn. (WTVF) — For years, the guest list for an annual white nationalist gathering at Tennessee’s Montgomery Bell State Park has been a closely guarded secret.

This year, NewsChannel 5 Investigates set up surveillance at the security checkpoint for the American Renaissance Conference, discovering that the attendees include characters who have celebrated heinous acts of violence by neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists.

In one case, one of the attendees posted about how he could one day see himself following in the footsteps of a man who killed innocent Jews he viewed as the enemy.

That discovery stands in stark contrast to efforts by American Renaissance leaders to portray the yearly event as an intellectual meeting of the minds by white Americans. AmRen, as it is known, has