Pictures of banners reading, "Eclipse Whitey," and "Jewish Funding Available" were posted on Twitter by a Springfield man named Jimmy Marr, who is known locally for public displays of racism.
— Jimmy Marr (@GenocideJimmy) August 20, 2017
Oregon Governor Kate Brown responded to the signs Saturday on Twitter, saying, "Hateful rhetoric like this has no place in our Oregon. We must stand together to ensure that Oregon is a welcoming & inclusive place to all."
— Jimmy Marr (@GenocideJimmy) August 20, 2017
Writing under his Twitter handle, @GenocideJimmy, Marr responded, "Truth is hate to those who hate the truth."
— Jimmy Marr (@GenocideJimmy) August 20, 2017
On Sunday evening, Marr also posted pictures of people holding signs emblazoned with swastikas reading "UnJew Humanity," "Bolshevik Jews perpetrated the Holodomor," and "Resist Racial Eclipse."
— Jimmy Marr (@GenocideJimmy) August 19, 2017
The banners were first reported Saturday by a California family that was shocked to see the signs as they headed north to see the eclipse. Oregon Department of Transportation spokeswoman Angela Beers Seydel said that the banners were gone by the time department officials arrived. Regardless of content, banners are not allowed on overpasses, as they can distract drivers.
— Jimmy Marr (@GenocideJimmy) August 18, 2017
The agency has not yet identified the responsible parties, according to Sydel.
On Sunday, Marr tweeted that Beth Dershowitz, who called in the banners with her husband Michael, is probably "as fake as Anne Frank's diary."
When Oregon Live tried to reach the neo-Nazi by telephone, they were greeted with a voicemail message that said,"Leave us a message after the tone. Tell us what you're doing to fight white genocide."
Marr has been in the news a couple times for the often intrusive ways he expresses his beliefs. In 2013, he hung a banner on the interstate that read, "Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white."
Mark Potok from the Southern Poverty Law Center told KVAL at the time, "What this slogan is trying to tell the world is that if you position yourself as opposed to racism, is what you are really saying is let's destroy the white race." He said white supremacist groups were trying to popularize the slogan online.
Marr was arrested after a 2016 demonstration against hate crimes when he installed a "very large amplified speaker" and played a loop of hateful messages that said in part, "Hate is good. Hate gives us a reason to exist. We can even pass hate onto our children and keep hate alive for centuries," the Register Guard Reports.
During the 2016 election, he made headlines for driving a truck with a swastika on it that read, "Trump: Do the White Thing," repainted from its original message "Jew Lies Matter."
