CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (CN) — Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke was doing a press conference in the summer of 2015 when someone passed him a note and he learned about the terror attack on his city. The message was sparse. Active shooter. Officer down.
On July 12, 2015, a man inspired by the Islamic State shot at a recruiting center in a strip mall, then at a U.S. Naval Reserve Center. Five service members died.
“I thought to myself as that incident unfolded, ‘How do we heal a city that has seen this kind of hateful act shatter the peace of who we thought we were?’” Berke told an audience Thursday, many of whom wore pins with the word HATE scratched through with a swath of red.
“And then over the course of the next few days and weeks and months, I found the answer to that,” Berke continued. “We came to a different place that saw amazing acts of strength and courage and healing that changed the way I view our city.”
As Berke told it, it happened at a vigil at Olivet Baptist Church days after the attack. A leader of the small Muslim community in the city got up. It was the last night of Ramadan, the leader said, a night observed with prayers at the mosque.
“But tonight we are Chattanoogans first,” Berke recalled him saying as other Muslims around the room stood.
Berke said the city’s response to the attack attracted international attention. That response, combined with the rising rate of hate crimes, Berke said, led him to found the Council Against Hate, which he announced about a year ago.
On Thursday, in a coffee shop that boasted chandeliers and a bar with India Pale Ales on tap, the City Council officially launched its effort to combat extremism at the local level. It has a threefold goal of reducing the hate that led to the 2015 attack, building resiliency if something happens. and improving the quality of lives for residents, Berke said before the event.
According to a 17-page report released by the council’s steering committee, the city plans to tap its police force, examine policies, train teachers and students, look to the faith community and examine the role of media in a multifront approach to foster tolerance and prevent hate crimes.
The FBI reported a 17% increase in reported hate crimes from 2016 to 2017, the most recently available data.
While other cities have made similar efforts, some people who have made their careers tackling extremism say that Chattanooga serves as a model for other cities attempting to combat extremism.
Chattanooga’s Council Against Hate, said Mike Singer, a former mayor of Charlottesville, is “a paradigm example of what communities around the country could start to do in this area because it's so thoughtfully conceived.”
Singer led Charlottesville during the 2017 Unite the Right Rally, which he described as “the largest assembly of white nationalists in a generation” while speaking at Chattanooga’s launch of its own council.
The rally turned deadly when a man rammed a crowd of counter-protesters, injuring 19 and killing Heather Heyer.
Singer, who sits on the Charlottesville City Council, started the Communities Overcoming Extremism: The After Charlottesville Project, to build consensus and discover best practices in dealing with incidents such as a white nationalist rally.
The project is backed by a diverse range of groups, from the Anti-Defamation League, to the Center for American Progress to the Charles Koch Institute. Berke sits on the project’s advisory board.
“The nature of extremism is it changes rapidly and is kind of like a virus,” Singer told Courthouse News. “So you need a fully equipped immune system and a lot of tools to address it that are creative and that together create the resilience that you need.”
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