HOWELL, Mich. (WXYZ) — After protesters waving Nazi flags showed up in Howell this past weekend, veterans at the Howell American Legion are hoping to send a message that hate is not welcome.
On Saturday, the American Legion Post 141 was hosting a play, “The Diary of Anne Frank,” when a handful of masked men showed up waving Nazi flags, allegedly shouting antisemitic and racist slurs.
“People were shocked. They were appalled," said Bobby Brite, past commander of the post. "Everything you would expect.”
Brite is a veteran who spent 26 years serving his country in the Army with deployments overseas. He witnessed the men outside and posted a live video of them to the legion's Facebook page. He says when he confronted them, they shouted hateful, antisemitic and racist slurs at him.
Brite says the legion post hosted the play put on by the Fowlerville Community Theatre in response to rising antisemitic. Everyone in attendance was alerted about the protest during intermission.
“We had 75 people downstairs that watched that play and out of that 75, there were 50 or 60 of them that were afraid to leave this building," Brite said. "We had to escort them to their cars. No one in America should feel like that.”
“It was upsetting," cast member Becky Frank, who played Edith Frank, told WLNS. "Just knowing the character I was playing, knowing a lot of the research on my character.”
“It kind of surprised me to have something that I was doing and had my name on getting protested,” the play's director Brandon Johnson told WLNS.
Livingston County sheriff's deputies were on scene and say nothing turned physical, but some of the veterans exchanged words with the Nazi protesters and were shocked at what they saw and heard.
“I have trouble wrapping my head around it. It's so wrong on so many fronts,” veteran Mark Epley said. "To have that much hatred in them, it makes no sense to me.”
Despite a negative history in their town and a rise in hate incidents nationwide, these veterans want it known that hate has no place in Howell or anywhere in the country they vowed to protect.
“It's actually heartbreaking. It's a terrible, terrible thing," Brite said of the rising hate incidents. "I don't know how we come away from it.”
“We need to work together to bring this country back together instead of tearing it apart,” Epley said.
