The group cited by Dylann Roof as inspiration for his deadly, racially-motivated attack on a black Charleston church was planning to hold a conference at a Nashville hotel, but the hotel cancelled on them, the Tennessean reports.
The Guesthouse Inn cancelled reservations belonging to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group. The group had planned a weekend conference that included a "meet and greet" and other events.
"This is definitely not what the Guesthouse Inn represents," inn director Michelle Jameson told the paper. "The group will not be at our hotel, nor will they ever be at our hotel."
When looking up information about "black on white crime," Roof said in a manifesto that the CCC's website came up.
"The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens," Roof wrote. "There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?"
CCC organizers told the Tennessean they were expecting about 100 people at the event.
Brad Griffin, a CCC board member, told the paper the organization is having trouble finding a place to meet, because venues keep cancelling on them.
"We can't reserve a hotel conference room without groups organizing out there to make death threats to cancel the conference, certain protests and stuff. One after another, these private hotels fold," he told the paper. "The most outrageous thing about this is you have these people posturing as civil rights groups when their real agenda is taking away the civil rights of others."
Roof massacred nine unarmed churchgoers in the June shooting spree at Charleston's historically black Emanuel AME. Among the dead were civil rights leader, pastor, and South Carolina State Sen. Clementa Pinckney. Roof has been charged with the killings.
