A rural Tennessee region was rocked this week after thousands of homes received mailers encouraging them to join the local Young Republicans chapter with a campaign platform including “No wars for Jews.”
Tennessee
Nashville’s Jefferson Street Sound Museum named stop on U.S. Civil Rights Trail
Tennessee now has 17 sites along the United States Civil Rights Trail, giving visitors the opportunity to experience landmarks tied to the struggle for equality.
In Nashville, stops along the trail include the Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library, Clark Memorial United Methodist Church and Fisk University.
Now, two more locations are joining that list: the Museum of Christian & Gospel Music and the Jefferson Street Sound Museum.
For decades, Jefferson Street was known as the heart of Nashville’s Black entertainment scene, with music spilling from nightclubs that once lined the corridor.
“This was the street in Nashville for Black folk,” Lorenzo Washington said.
But in the 1960s, construction of Interstate 40 tore through the neighborhood, destroying hundreds of homes and businesses and forever changing the area.
About 15 years ago, Lorenzo Washington decided those musical legacies would not be forgotten.
He founded and curated the Jefferson Street Sound Museum inside what used to be his own home.
“They were afraid their legacy was being lost,” Washington said. “And that’s why I turned my house — this was my house. We’re sitting in what used to be my living room.”
Now, that history is receiving national recognition.
The museum has officially been added to the U.S. Civil Rights Trail — a collection of more than 130 sites across multiple states and Washington, D.C., where activists challenged segregation in the 1950s and 1960s.
“Tennessee itself has 17 sites — that’s pretty fantastic,” said Karen Coffee, the museum’s vice president.
Coffee said the house itself is part of that history.
“This house was built in 1909, and it’s a testament to the Civil Rights Movement,” Coffee said. “All the marches happened right in front of this house.”
For Washington, the recognition is deeply personal.
“A lot of those artists I got a chance to know lived through Jim Crow,” he said. “They would be ecstatic — elated — to know all of this is happening on historic Jefferson Street.”
Washington said the designation is proof that both the music and the movement continue to resonate.
The Jefferson Street Sound Museum is open Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and by appointment Tuesday through Thursday.
This story was reported by Aaron Cantrell and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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The flyers led to a dramatic showdown at a local GOP meeting, including a state lawmaker’s cry of “I am a Jew!” and a rejoinder from Austin Lee, the young man behind the flyers: “We will not fight wars for you.” Cops escorted the provocateur out.
“Let’s face it, we read about antisemitism and anti-Black or white nationalism, right?” the lawmaker, State Rep. Scott Cepicky, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We hear about this stuff, and people are like, ‘Well, you know, that’s over there, or that’s in another state, that’s not here.’ Let me tell you something. It came to Maury County.”
The mailers, which encouraged recipients to “support” Lee, also said “Stop the Great Replacement” (a reference to the antisemitic Great Replacement Theory), “Ban Islam and Hinduism” and “Men in charge.”
“Nonwhite foreigners have invaded our country and are replacing White Americans,” read the flyers, viewed by JTA and reportedly sent to around 2,000 households with young white men. “Efforts at mass deportations have failed. No one is coming to save us; we must solve this problem ourselves.”
The flyers were mailed mainly in Maury County, 50 miles south of Nashville, as well as some surrounding counties. In addition to Lee’s name and an invitation to join the Maury County Young Republicans, they contained the prominent logo of the Tennessee Young Republicans – invoking broader concerns that a younger generation of Republicans are trending toward antisemitic and white nationalist ideas.
Mailers reportedly sent out without permission
However, local Republican leaders told JTA the mailers were sent out without permission; that Lee holds no formal leadership role in the county GOP; and that the county’s Young Republicans chapter is currently inactive.
The county GOP chair strongly denounced the content of the mailers to JTA.
“It’s appalling that somebody would send this out,” Jason Gilliam told JTA about his reaction to the flyers. “This kind of thing really disgusts me. I mean, I have an Israeli flag on my bumper – not that that means anything.”
Gilliam said he first became aware of the flyers on Sunday, after households had begun receiving them. At a local GOP meeting the next day, Cepicky condemned the flyers by invoking his own Jewish ancestry.
“I’m a Jew, I’m an Ashkenazi Jew,” Cepicky told the crowd at the GOP meeting in a video taken and later posted by Lee himself. “My family left Israel, moved to Central Europe. In the 30s, you know what happened in Central Europe with Jews. My family immigrated to the United States.”
After Cepicky threatened to “pursue the law on these individuals” who distributed the mailer, Lee, who was also in attendance at the meeting, identified himself.
Cepicky accused Lee of spreading rhetoric “espoused in Europe” in the 1930s. Lee responded, “It was right then, and it is right now. We will not fight wars for you.” Lee was later escorted from the event by law enforcement. Lee has on social media cited Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “war for Jews.”
Cepicky told JTA he felt compelled to denounce Lee’s antisemitism in part because he was standing in front of a replica of the preamble to the US Constitution at the meeting.
“It was behind me, and it spurred me to say, ‘That doesn’t say, “We the Christians,” or, “We the Jews,” or, “We the Islamics,” or, “We the men, we the women.” It doesn’t say that,’” he said. “It says, ‘We the people.’”
Cepicky told JTA that he is a practicing Christian who discovered his Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry on 23andMe. He said his family arrived sometime after the 1917 Russian Revolution. He made his first trip to Israel in 2024, to visit the kibbutzim attacked by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and helped found the Tennessee Israel Caucus in the state legislature shortly thereafter.
Gilliam and Cepicky both described Lee to JTA as an infrequent attendee at county GOP meetings who holds no leadership role with the party, and said the county Young Republicans chapter was inactive. They added that they would be pushing for an investigation into what they said was his unauthorized use of the county and state Young Republicans’ name on his mailers.
In social media posts and other interviews following the meeting, Lee continued to assert that he was the president of Maury County Young Republicans. He also referred to Cepicky multiple times as “Jewish Representative Scott Cepicky.”
“I took over that chapter,” Lee said in an interview on Wednesday with a local radio station, claiming he had used a “process” to reactivate the local Young Republicans group. He declined to answer questions about who funded his mailers.
In a statement to media, the statewide Tennessee Young Republicans said the use of their logo “was not authorized” and said the group “did not, and does not, authorize, endorse, or support the recent communications published by the Maury County Young Republicans.”
Young Republicans chapters across US plagued with antisemitism
As of press time, the Tennessee Young Republicans list Maury County as an active chapter on their website. Efforts by JTA to contact the group’s statewide director were unsuccessful. In recent months, official Young Republicans chapters across the country have become embroiled in antisemitism controversies.
Whether Lee has any more solid connections with local GOP officials was a matter of dispute. Gilliam claimed he had first been introduced to Lee by Aaron Miller, a local elected GOP county commissioner with whom Gilliam has since had a falling-out over unrelated matters. Asked about his relationship to Miller on the radio, Lee declined to comment.
Reached by JTA on Friday, Miller denied he had any connection to Lee beyond that “we had beers a couple of times.”
“I don’t agree with his politics. I don’t agree with his approach,” Miller told JTA. “I got a mailer and I was like, ‘Oh, OK, this is interesting.’”
Lee did not respond to a JTA request for comment.
Miller did say that young men, feeling unrepresented by the current Republican Party, are seeking out “alternatives to liberal democracy.” He has advocated for the county GOP to reach out more to the population, he said.
“Anything where you’re going to approach an entire group of people with a blanket mindset, I think that’s wicked,” he said. “We’re all made in God’s image.”
Gilliam and Cepicky told JTA that, in addition to the antisemitism, they strongly objected to the mailers’ anti-immigrant rhetoric and misogyny. At a time of Republican-led immigration crackdowns on the national level, and as national figures including Vice President JD Vance have downplayed the rise of antisemitism within the party, these local GOP leaders loudly insisted such forces should be stamped out.
“This kind of stuff is absolutely not going to be allowed. I will not stand for it,” Gilliam said. “If you don’t cut the head off the snake, it’s going to come back, right? It’s not going to stop. It’s only going to fester. It’s going to grow. And this kind of thing, the roots need to be yanked out of the ground.”
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — FOX 17 News issued a Code Red alert for heavy rain and storms on Saturday.
Rain is expected to start Saturday morning across the area. The heaviest rain will fall along and north of I-40, where flash flooding could happen.
A flood watch is in effect through Sunday morning for areas north of I-40. Those areas could see between 2 to 3 inches of rain, with some spots getting even more.
Most of Middle Tennessee is under a small risk for severe storms Saturday afternoon into the evening. Damaging wind will be the main threat, and there’s a very low chance for tornadoes.
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The storms will clear out by Saturday evening. After that, attention turns to a heat wave building in next week.
Heat dome vs heat wave: What’s the difference and why it matters
Heat wave or heat dome? Here’s the difference — and why some extreme heat lasts longer and feels more dangerous.
A “significant” heat wave is on the way.
According to the latest forecast from the Weather Prediction Center, dangerous heat is expected across much of the country, including Tennessee, beginning June 28, and lasting into next week.
The National Weather Service is anticipating temperatures in the 90s to low 100s.
“These hot temperatures combined with high humidity will lead to heat indices of 100-110 degrees and locally as high as 115,” wrote the weather service in a June 25 statement. “Low temperatures only dropping into the 70s will provide little overnight relief.”
Here’s what to know.
What is a heat dome?
Heat domes, also called ridges of high pressure or death ridges, are large bulges of sinking warm air that can stretch up to 1,000 miles in summer, driving temperatures 30 degrees above normal and creating hazardous, drying conditions that often lead to deadly, multi‑day heat waves, Weather.com said.
According to climatecheck.com, the term describes the “oppressive” high-pressure atmospheric systems that cause warm air to be pushed to the Earth’s surface and trapped there for long periods of time.
“The dome traps high-pressure air in one place, like the lid on a pot,” the website said. “These large zones of hot air result in a combination of blistering temperatures, devastating wildfires, and drought conditions.”
How long will the heat dome last?
The period of extreme heat is expected to stretch through Independence Day weekend, lasting until July 6.
High to moderate extreme heat risk is expected across much of the central and eastern U.S. from July 3–4, with a broader slight risk extending through July 6. Heat indices of 100–110 degrees and warm nights in the 70s and 80s may limit relief over the holiday weekend, the weather service reported.
How hot will it get?
NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center said hot weather will be the story this coming weekend from the Plains to the Ohio Valley, with widespread above-average temperatures expected thanks to a strong upper-level ridge of high pressure (aka heat dome) developing.
Highs in the 90s are expected as far north as the Great Lakes and Minnesota, and 100s for much of Texas, USA TODAY reported.
Heat indices approaching 110 degrees are possible from the mid-South to the central Gulf Coast where the combination of heat and high dew points will be greatest.
Overnight lows will also be quite warm, with some record high minimums possible.
For much of next week, the core of the heat dome is likely to be centered on the Ohio Valley, the middle portion of the Mississippi Valley and the Tennessee Valley, according to AccuWeather. At times, the heat will expand outward and reach parts of the Plains, the Great Lakes, the East and the Gulf Coast.
How will the heat dome impact Tennessee?
According to the National Weather Service Nashville office, “oppressive” heat and humidity will bring triple digit heat indices from Sunday onward.
“Look for our rain chances to abate from Sunday onward, just as the first bonafide heat wave of the season settles in for the long haul,” wrote the weather service in its morning discussion June 26.
“While rain chances next week will be nearly non-existent, temperatures across the bulk of the mid state west of the Cumberland Plateau will top out in the mid to upper 90s every day at least through Friday.”
This will result in heat indices reaching the 100s across most areas, with heat advisory criteria likely to be met on multiple days, added the service.
All of Tennessee is expected to receive major heat, while portions of Middle Tennessee and all of West Tennessee will face extreme heat.
According to the weather service, major heat can affect anyone without proper cooling and hydration, as well as strain health systems and industries, while extreme heat involves rare and or prolonged high temperatures with little to no overnight relief, impacting anyone without adequate cooling or hydration.
How to stay safe during periods of high, dangerous heat
Extreme heat can lead to heat-related illnesses and even death.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heat-related illness occurs when the body is unable to properly cool itself. Older adults, young children and people with chronic medical conditions are at especially high risk.
The CDC reports that more than 700 people die from extreme heat each year in the United States.
The CDC recommends the following during periods of extreme heat:
- Stay in an air-conditioned indoor location as much as you can.
- Drink plenty of fluids even if you don’t feel thirsty.
- Schedule outdoor activities carefully and pace yourself. Wear loose, lightweight, light-colored clothing and sunscreen.
- Take cool showers or baths to cool down.
- Check on a friend or neighbor and have someone do the same for you.
- Never leave children or pets in cars.
- Check the local news for health and safety updates.
Contributing: USA TODAY
Diana Leyva covers trending news and service journalism for The Tennessean. Contact her at Dleyva@gannett.com.
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