Jake Lang Draws Hundreds to Dearborn Rally as 110,000-Person City Fears Anti-Muslim Violence
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Aug 20
Jake Lang Draws Hundreds to Dearborn Rally as 110,000-Person City Fears Anti-Muslim Violence
2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Aug 20
Summary
Hundreds of supporters and counterprotesters converged Tuesday night in Dearborn for Jake Lang’s self-styled “Christian Crusade” rally, creating a standoff that appeared close to violence.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said the anti-Muslim agitation had unnerved residents so deeply that a 7-year-old boy asked him whether the “crusaders” were going to kill him.
Lang, who has visited the majority Arab American city at least four times in recent months, promoted the event online as a “pig roast” and has called Muslims “insidious parasites” who should leave the United States.
The rally drew Trump-supporting Christian preachers, Muslim counterprotesters, neo-Nazis carrying a swastika flag and a few men with assault rifles, underscoring how Dearborn has become a flashpoint in a wider anti-Islam campaign.