BIRMINGHAM, Ala — A large Patriot Front banner erected on the Elton B. Stephens Expressway southbound was spotted and taken down within hours on Feb. 22, 2026, continuing a pattern of the white supremacist group’s low-profile propaganda efforts in the Birmingham area.
Patriot Front, which accounted for about 82% of U.S. white supremacist propaganda incidents in 2021 according to the Anti-Defamation League, favors such overnight “banner drops,” flyering, and stickering to spread its message without direct confrontation.
This marks at least the second recent wave of their materials in Birmingham suburbs this month, following reports of posters in West Homewood and elsewhere that residents also peeled away.
Patriot Front splintered from the neo-Nazi Vanguard America in 2017 after leader Thomas Ryan Rousseau seized control of its online platforms ahead of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Rousseau rebranded it as Patriot Front to dodge backlash while retaining the same white nationalist ideology, which holds that America belongs exclusively to those of “founding stock” European descent.
The Texas-based group, estimated at 200-300 members nationwide, uses fasces — a fascist symbol — alongside American flags flown upside down to signal national “distress,” and mandates weekly propaganda quotas on members.
Patriot Front cloaks its activities in “patriotic” Americana and rhetoric about reclaiming “traditions and virtues,” yet internal leaks and actions reveal opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, including targeting Pride events and community centers with propaganda.
Leaked 2022 chats showed plans to vandalize racial justice murals and spread misinformation, contradicting their public stance on “free speech” by enforcing strict behavioral codes and punishing non-compliant members.
Their selective “freedom” — for white nationalists only — echoes broader far-right patterns, as seen in arrests near a 2022 Idaho Pride parade and flyering at Black churches.
Birmingham has seen repeated Patriot Front activity since 2022, including expressway banners, neighborhood stickers, and UAB campus flyers that drew student pushback.
The group resurfaced nearby in Prattville last year with an anti-substance abuse banner, and locals describe a small cadre of about a dozen operatives here who operate nocturnally to evade scrutiny.
City officials and residents have consistently removed such materials, underscoring community rejection of the group’s efforts to normalize hate under a veneer of nationalism.