Protest over group’s meetings in Nassau County’s American Beach

NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. — A local group is calling on a conservative group to stop holding meetings in Nassau’s county’s American Beach.

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American Beach was where African Americans would go to the beach during segregation in the Jim Crow area.

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The Democratic Club of Amelia Island and some local residents protested the Citizens Defending Freedom meeting. They believe CDF teaches intolerance and believe their presence is a threat to the historic community and want them to meet somewhere else.

The Democratic Club of Amelia Island believes CDF teaches intolerance and believes their presence is a threat to the historic community. Some people in the area and the DCAI believe the group picked the spot intentionally to intimidate locals.

Action News Jax was told the group meets there on a regular basis and CDF Nassau’s leader said he thinks what the activists were protesting about is a made-up problem.

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CDF website says it looks to empower American citizens to stand for and preserve freedom for themselves and future generations and do so on the “value of the gospel of Jesus Christ and its influence on America’s founding.”

CDF was part of an effort against the Pride Celebration in Fernandina Beach last year and has been involved in book ban discussions in the county.

DCAI said the CDF’s values are infringing upon the freedoms of marginalized and minority groups and believe they don’t coincide with the African American history of American Beach.

“What you have to understand is most people who live here, we understand the dog whistles, what starts with one group will only grow to another marginalized group,” Pam McCorkle BunCum said.

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Protestors acknowledged that CDF had the right to be using the public building, but said they wanted to speak up.

The organizer of the CDF Nassau chapter said they’re happy to be at the building, they love the area, the community, and disagreed with what protestors had to say about them.

“That couldn’t be farther from the truth. We’re here because this is where we meet. We have meetings on Tuesdays, typically the 1st Tuesday of the month,” he said. “If anything, we totally support the values of Martin Luther King. What we are doing is taking obscene and pornographic books out of the schools.”

The protest fell on the same day of the 56th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

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