Jan. 6 Insurrectionists Threatened to Trap Folger Library Staff, Citing Bard
• Insurrectionists sent a letter to the Folger Shakespeare Library saying they would block access to prevent people inside from escaping through tunnels during the Jan. 6 attack.
• The letter apologized for the inconvenience but said they were exercising their 1st Amendment rights.
• Scholars have documented connections between Shakespeare and white nationalism, including similarities between his works and the Jan. 6 attack.
• The Folger's first director promoted Shakespeare as cementing America's Anglo-Saxon heritage, though the library now denounces white nationalism.
• Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth invoked Shakespeare's Brutus after shooting Lincoln, shouting "sic semper tyrannis" as the real Brutus did after killing Julius Caesar.