July 7 (Reuters) - Photographers for Reuters gathered in Washington on Saturday, preparing to cover the massive celebrations of the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence over the July 4 weekend — the scheduled and the unexpected.
Around 9 a.m. on Saturday, photographer Nathan Howard started seeing social media reports the Patriot Front, a white supremacist organization whose members employ fascist symbolism and mask their faces in public, was marching in the city. He decided to document their activities.
Howard has covered extremist groups in the past and knew the group's method was to stage short marches and then scatter.
"Knowing time was working against us, I immediately began gathering information about the march and talking with sources who track extremist groups," he said. "I found a livestream following the group, social media posts from people who had encountered them, and Reddit posts that helped identify landmarks and street signs, allowing me to narrow down their approximate location."
Howard set out with freelance colleague Cheney Orr. They saw an opening when the two found members of the group — wearing matching navy tops, khaki pants and white face coverings — as they were dispersing and making their way to the Eastern Market Metro station.
The Patriot Front did not respond to queries from Reuters about why they were marching or the identities of the masked members whose images the news agency captured.
The group on Saturday posted that about 400 members had arrived in Washington. A manifesto on Patriot Front's website says, "Democracy has failed this once great nation," and a "hard reset" is needed to "return to the traditions and virtues of our forefathers," who they say were European settlers.
Howard and Orr photographed hundreds of group members heading into the Metro station, waiting on a platform and boarding a train, the sea of masked faces incongruous with the everyday scenes of public transit and commuters. The photographers split up and took up positions at two ends of a passenger car, packed with members.
One photo in particular, taken by Orr, has attracted global attention. It shows a woman in a green T-shirt sitting alone on the train, her face impassive. Members of the Patriot Front are sitting and standing in front of her, behind her and next to her.
"As I photographed members of the group, I noticed the woman you see in this image sitting alone among them," said Orr. "I leaned over seated members of Patriot Front, extended my arm, and composed the frame using my camera's screen," he added.
At the train's final stop in New Carrollton, the group disembarked and the photographers continued taking pictures as members dispersed and made their way to individual vehicles. Orr said he did not see where the woman in the photo went.
Reuters spoke to one of the woman's family members, but was unable to reach the woman for an interview.
(Reporting by Reuters, Writing by Rosalba O'Brien, Editing by Howard Goller)
