KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WOKI / WVLT) — A Tennessee man who admitted to burning down part of the historic Highlander Center, a site known for its role in the Civil Rights Movement, has been sentenced to 17-and-a-half years in federal prison.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that Regan Prater, 28, of Tullahoma, received the sentence after pleading guilty earlier this year to arson and attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
According to court documents, Prater admitted to traveling from his home in Tullahoma to the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market in March 2019. Prosecutors said he used a “sparkler bomb,” a napalm-based incendiary device, to set fire to a building on the property.
Investigators said the attack destroyed one of the center’s facilities and caused more than $1.2 million in damage.
As part of his plea agreement, Prater acknowledged that he carried out the attack because of his white supremacist ideology and because of the center’s faith-based educational mission and ties to the Civil Rights Movement.
The Highlander Center has played a significant role in American history. The center provided training for civil rights leaders, including Rosa Parks, who attended a workshop there in 1955 months before refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. John Lewis and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also had connections to the center, which became a hub for civil rights organizing and nonviolent activism.
Federal prosecutors also detailed a separate offense involving terrorism-related charges. According to the Justice Department, Prater admitted attempting to provide material support to Hezbollah, a group designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization.
Officials said Prater obtained a document that purportedly contained personal information for more than 35,000 individuals allegedly connected to the Israeli government and shared it with a person he believed was associated with Hezbollah. Prosecutors said Prater included a message that read, “Start the hunt.”
In addition to the prison sentence, Prater was ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay more than $1.2 million in restitution for the damage caused by the fire.
Federal officials said the sentence reflects the seriousness of both the arson attack and the terrorism-related offense.
