30+ Of Our Favorite Signs From Sunday's Rally Against White Supremacy & Fascism
By aaroncynic in News on Aug 28, 2017 4:29PM
More than a thousand people rallied at Federal Plaza and later marched to Trump Tower Sunday to take a stand against white supremacy and fasicsm, as well as show solidarity with those protesting fascists and other white supremacists on the West Coast.
“Late Friday, knowing they would face massive opposition, neo-fascists in the Bay Area cancelled their planned events,” organizers said in a statement. “Counter-protesters in the Bay Area decided to continue the plan to take their opposition to the bigots to the streets, and we will be doing the same here in Chicago.”
A coalition of than 40 groups came together to put the rally and march together, including religious, activist, labor, and other organizations.
More than 40 groups came together to organize today's #nohateChi rally. Lots of talk about using solidarity to defeat white supremacy pic.twitter.com/piPvfxR0w7
— Aaron Cynic (@aaroncynic) August 27, 2017
“We’re here because in recent months, open Nazis, the Klu Klux Klan and other violent racists have emerged from the sewers of the internet to show their face in public,” said Anton Ford of the International Socialist Organization. “We know that people like that cannot be ignored. They must be confronted.”
The murder of Heather Heyer earlier this month by a white supremacist who drove a car through a crowd of demonstrators in Charlottesville was one of the most publicized attacks by white nationalist and fascist groups in recent memory, but not the first by far. Organizers say that as far right groups have become more public and brazen, so have attacks on marginalized people their organizations target. In May, a student at Bowie State University in Maryland was murdered by a neo-Nazi, and in June, two people were murdered in Portland, Oregon after intervening to stop two African-American women from being murdered. Here in Chicago, a man accused of being a white supremacist stabbed two people at a punk concert earlier this month, and white supremacist graffiti was found in Logan Square Saturday, prompting its own rally later Sunday evening.
"The past 2 weeks show that the liberal idea of 'just ignore them and they'll go away' doesn't work" #nohateChi pic.twitter.com/Ev23IKj3Jx
— Aaron Cynic (@aaroncynic) August 27, 2017
"Chicago is not immune from racist violence" pic.twitter.com/7Dh41lGbRX
— Aaron Cynic (@aaroncynic) August 27, 2017