A Tennessee State University professor’s home was vandalized with white supremacist slogans and swastikas. Photo by Rabbi Philip “Flip” Rice

By Adam Kovac April 13, 2023

A Nashville community is coming together with messages of support for Black and Jewish people after a professor’s home was vandalized with white supremacist slogans and swastikas.

According to a statement released by Tennessee State University, the home of history professor Andrew Patrick was defaced on March 19.

In a video released by the university, Patrick said his wife went downstairs at 8:15 a.m. and told him to come down.

Antisemitism Notebook

Your weekly guide through the news and the noise of how rising antisemitism and disputes over how to address it are shaping American Jewish life.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“I went down and right on our front door, which is glass, there was a swastika painted. She told me to go outside and I find two more swastikas and two statements, ‘white power,’ on either side.”

Doorbell camera footage captured at 1:30 a.m. showed a suspect spray-painting the door and then tearing down a Black Lives Matter flag that Patrick and his family had hung outside. According to the university, it was the second time such a flag had been destroyed by vandals at the house.

While Nashville is relatively progressive, the area has seen an uptick in notable white supremacist incidents, according to Rabbi Philip “Flip” Rice of Congregation Micah. Although he’d heard about this incident, Rice didn’t know the details of the graffiti at Patrick’s home, but said it matched other times where graffiti or pamphlets had been distributed with anti-Jewish messages.

Within hours of the vandalism, dozens of neighbors had come by the Patricks’ home to help scrub off the vandalism, including two other TSU professors, according to the school’s statement. Many also helped to paint more than 100 signs bearing messages of support for the Patrick family, as well as Black Lives Matter and the Jewish community. Aside from the Patrick house, several other homes were struck by vandals in March.

Rice said the Jewish community in Nashville has been particularly on edge given recent events in the state such as a school shooting that left six people dead and the state legislature’s ensuing vote to remove two Black Democratic representatives over a gun reform protest.

The synagogue’s preschool has removed a sign out front in the wake of the vandalism, Rice said.

“Everyone is trying to balance the values of being warm and welcoming and also being a little under the radar,” he said.

Patrick, who identifies as a non-religious white man but who was raised Catholic, said it’s been heartening to see support from his colleagues. Tennessee State is a historically Black university.

“That’s one thing, our department’s a really lovely department,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a window into what it’s like to be intimidated for what you believe or who you are. It’s really instructive and it’s eye-opening. It makes you think differently about the world and what you should be doing in the world.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount