The father of a white nationalist who marched in Charlottesville, Va. over the weekend has disowned his son in a letter to the editor of his local newspaper in North Dakota.
“My name is Pearce Tefft, and I am writing to all, with regards to my youngest son, Peter Tefft, an avowed white nationalist who has been featured in a number of local new stories over the last several months,” the letter begins.
“I, along with all of his siblings and his entire family, wish to loudly repudiate my son’s vile, hateful, and racist rhetoric and actions. We do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs. He did not learn them at home,” Tefft wrote in the letter, published in The Fargo Forum.
He added that his son “is not welcome at our family gatherings any longer. I pray my prodigal son will renounce his hateful beliefs and return home. Then and only then will I lay out the feast.”
The younger Tefft, of Fargo, was identified over the weekend as one of the attendees of the “Unite the Right” rally, which thousands of white nationalists and neo-Nazis attended in protest over the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Tefft, who drove to Charlottesville on Friday and calls himself a “pro-white activist” on Twitter, has a history of spouting pro-Nazi rhetoric. He has previously been identified in local news reports as a Nazi sympahtizer. His father, Pearce Tefft, recalled in his letter that his son once joked about being a fascist.
“The thing about us fascists is, it’s not that we don’t believe in freedom of speech. You can say whatever you want. We’ll just throw you in an oven,” Tefft said, according to his father.
There is no indication that Tefft was involved in violence at the Charlottesville march, or during a torch parade that white nationalists attended at the University of Virginia campus the night before.
But, a 32-year-old woman who was protesting against the white nationalists was killed after she was run over by James Fields, a 20-year-old Ohio native who has been described as a white supremacist.
According to Pearce Tefft, his family began receiving threats after he was identified on social media by a Twitter account that spent the weekend identifying people who attended the rally.
“His hateful opinions are bringing hateful rhetoric to his siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews as well as his parents,” he writes.
“Why must we be guilty by association? Again, none of his beliefs were learned at home. We do not, never have, and never will, accept his twisted worldview.”