Masked Patriot Front white nationalists stage July 4 march through DC

WASHINGTON, July 4 (Reuters) – Hundreds of masked members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front marched in parts of Washington, D.C., on Saturday ahead of Independence Day celebrations planned for the evening.

The group announced on social media that it had arrived in the capital with nearly 400 members, and Reuters photographers saw hundreds of people dressed in Patriot Front fatigues traveling on DC Metro trains.

In videos posted on various social media platforms and shared on Patriot Front’s own Telegram channel, the group is seen marching toward drummers near the U.S. Capitol wearing khaki pants and caps, blue shirts, white face masks and sunglasses. Many carried the group’s flag, Confederate flags and variations of the American flag, and at times chanted “Take America Back.”

They boarded Metro trains at noon and got off the subway at New Carrollton, Maryland, in Washington’s northeastern suburbs.

Patriot Front, known for its uniforms, face masks and flash mob-style demonstrations, was founded in 2017 after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and spun off from the Vanguard America white supremacist group at the center of that protest, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A manifesto on the Patriotic Front website says: “Democracy has failed in this once great nation” and a “hard reset” is needed to “return to the traditions and virtues of our ancestors”, describing them as European settlers.

(Reporting by David Lawder and Jana Winter; Editing by Sergio Non and Rod Nickel)