A Tennessee man with ties to white supremacist groups pleaded guilty to arson in federal court on Friday for a 2019 attack that destroyed the offices of a social justice center connected to Rosa Parks and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., according to court records.
The man, Regan Prater, set fire to the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tenn., near Knoxville, on March 29, 2019, according to court records.
He carried out the attack on the center, which was an incubator for the civil rights movement, because of his white supremacist beliefs, according to court records.
Mr. Prater, of Tullahoma, Tenn., broke into the center’s administrative building and “intentionally and maliciously” lit a sparkler bomb, which uses a common sparkler firework as a fuse.
The early-morning blaze destroyed the center’s main offices and caused roughly $1.2 million in damage, according to court records.
Before he detonated the bomb, Mr. Prater also spray-painted the symbol of the Iron Guard in the center’s parking lot. The symbol, which originated with the Nazi Party in Romania in the 1930s, has been resurrected by white supremacists in recent years.
The man who murdered 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019 had the symbol painted on one of his guns. Court documents indicate that Mr. Prater may have been inspired by the mass shooting in New Zealand.
A lawyer for Mr. Prater did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday afternoon.
The Highlander Center was founded as a folk school in Monteagle, Tenn., in 1932, with an emphasis on faith-based educational priorities and cultural work, including instruction on social justice, equality and sustainability issues.
It soon became a cornerstone of the civil rights movement.
Ms. Parks attended a civil rights workshop at Highlander in 1955, a few weeks before she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, which led to the Montgomery bus boycott.
In 1957, Ms. Parks returned to the center when Dr. King gave closing remarks at a conference that celebrated the school’s 25th anniversary.
Decades of historic documents, speeches and other artifacts were reduced to ashes in the arson, the center said.
The center did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday afternoon.
Mr. Prater also pleaded guilty on Friday in the federal court in the Eastern District of Tennessee to a separate charge of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
That charge stemmed from Mr. Prater’s efforts to provide Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, with the personal identifying information of more than 35,000 people who were said to be affiliated with the government of Israel, according to court records.
Mr. Prater provided a PDF containing that information to a person he believed to be affiliated with Hezbollah in late October 2019. It was not clear where Mr. Prater got the information.
When he sent the document, he said, “for the Hezbollah or other pals living in the zone: Start the hunt.” He added: “I hope the information in the pdf helps you guys against Israel.”
Mr. Prater faces between five and 20 years in prison for the arson charge, and up to 20 years in prison for the terrorism charge.
Hannah Ziegler is a general assignment reporter for The Times, covering topics such as crime, business, weather, pop culture and online trends.
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