WATCH: Counter-protesters rock out to 'La Bamba' as white supremacist leader speaks at Tennessee march
White supremacist leader Michael Hill speaks as protesters blast Ritchie Valens (Screen capture)
October 28, 2017
On Saturday, anti-racist protesters at Shelbyville, TN's "White Lives Matter" march trolled white supremacist leader Michael Hill by blasting latino rocker Ritchie Valens' 1958 hit song, "La Bamba."
Neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other far-right marchers gathered in Shelbyville on Saturday to march and chant Nazi Party slogans like "Blood and soil" as they brandished homemade shields and other weapons.
"You can party all you want to," said Hill angrily, "but we are just getting started."
"We know who we are, we are the people," he continued, shouting into a hand-held microphone, "who civilized this land."
He struggled to be heard, however, over the the exuberant rhythms of "La Bamba."
Valens was a Mexican-American singer from California who was the first U.S. Latino to cross over into mainstream rock and roll. He died at the age of 18 in a plane crash that also killed singers Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper.
The February, 1959 crash has since become known as "The Day the Music Died," after folk singer Don McLean memorialized it in a song of the same name.
Watch the video, embedded below: