Activists decry white-supremacist banner over I-4

A group of community activists on Tuesday denounced a white-supremacist banner that was placed on an Interstate 4 overpass Monday, then quickly taken down by Orlando police.

The banner on the Conway Road overpass said “Our future belongs to us. End immigration now. Identity Evropa.”

Mitch Emerson, director of For Our Future, got a tip about the banner and went to take it down. He was about to remove it when a police officer arrived and did it instead, he said.

An Orlando police spokesman said the banner was a public nuisance and a distraction to drivers.

No one from Identity Evropa could be reached Tuesday.

For Our Future, a liberal political action committee funded by unions, held a news conference outside Orlando City Hall on Tuesday to condemn the banner.

“Over the past nine months, we have seen a rise in the more overt white-supremacist organizations becoming bolder,” Emerson said. “With the election of Donald Trump, these groups clearly have been emboldened everywhere, including right here in Florida.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center said Identity Evropa — which it considers a hate group — was founded in March 2016 by a California college student. In July 2016, the group passed out fliers at more than a dozen college campuses calling for “European identity and solidarity,” according to the law center.

The group also participated in the deadly Charlottesville, Va., white supremacist rally Aug. 12, that started with a protest over the removal of a Confederate statue.