Fact check: Did the protests against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer feature 'nooses and swastikas'?

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has instituted some of the harshest and arguably least constitutional stay-at-home orders in the country in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and as such has been the target of some eminently predictable protests.

Whitmer, for her part, has largely dismissed the protests and the protesters with divisive and dismissive rhetoric, which she ratcheted up a notch during a television interview Sunday, when she claimed that the protests "depicted some of the worst racism and most awful parts of U.S. history" and that they specifically included people displaying "confederate flags, nooses and swastikas."

Many in the media have uncritically repeated Whitmer's claim about the protesters without verifying whether they are true or not.

After reviewing hundreds of pictures of the protesters that were posted on social media, and by media photography services like Getty Images, as well as news accounts from other media outlets repeating Whitmer's claim, it appears that Gov. Whitmer's claim is partially true, but misleading.