Multiple motorists traveling on Interstate 65 on Monday near Clanton reported Alabama Department of Transportation signs displaying messages for a group identified as a white supremacist organization.
Images on social media showed large digital traffic signs displaying the words “Patriot Front” and “reclaim America.”
One driver, heading north on I-65, stated on Twitter that a Alabama state trooper “waved me to go on.”
“How does this come about? Is it an inside job kind of thing? It also said ‘Road Work Nightly’ or something on the third ‘slide’ and it was an actual work zone that followed. Weird as hell.”
Another motorist told AL.com that she reported the sign to a state trooper at about 1 p.m.
A spokesman for the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency referred questions to the Alabama Department of Transportation.
John McWilliams, public information officer for ALDOT’s West Central Region, said a contractor’s portable message board on I-65 in Chilton County was hacked.
“A citizen alerted a nearby state trooper about the message, who then contacted ALDOT,” McWilliams said. “ALDOT personnel immediately responded and turned the message board off. No other message boards on I-65 were affected.”
McWilliams said officials plan to investigate how the messages appeared.
The Southern Poverty Law Center identifies Patriot Front, based in Texas, as a “white nationalist hate group” which formed in the aftermath of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, Patriot Front is responsible for “the vast majority of white supremacist propaganda distributed in the United States” since 2019.
A year ago, graffiti beneath the 12th Court North bridge in Fountain Heights appeared with “Patriot Front US” spray painted in blue and red letters.
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