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Charlottesville Activists Respond to Looming Threat of Violence at Nationalist ‘March for Freedom’ in Portland, Oregon

On Saturday August 4th, far-right Republican US Senate candidate Joey Gibson’s “Patriot Prayer” organization, members of the “Proud Boys” fraternal organization, and a rogues gallery of white nationalists, fascists and Nazis, plan to march through the city of Portland, Oregon stoking conflict wherever and whenever they can. Ahead of these events, Black Lives Matter Charlottesville, Showing Up for Racial Justice Charlottesville, Congregate Charlottesville, and UVA Students United have issued the following statement:

“It’s no coincidence that Joey Gibson’s ‘March for Freedom’ resembles last year’s tragic ‘Unite the Right’ white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Indeed, some of the very same individuals and organizations that attended last August’s deadly rally in Charlottesville have announced their intentions to be at this Portland event. This so-called ‘March for Freedom’ is a large-tent conglomerate of disparate fascist, nationalist, racist, and white supremacist provocateurs openly planning street violence against rightfully concerned Portland community members. Gibson’s marches also rely heavily on muscle from the ‘Proud Boys’ whose members both organized and participated in the violence of last year’s deadly rally in Charlottesville.

“Charlottesville understands all too well what it means to have fascist agitators bring choreographed terror into our community. We remember bracing ourselves last year against the threat of white supremacist attacks cloaked as free speech. We send solidarity and love to Portland, particularly to communities most targeted by the Islamophobic, transphobic, anti-immigrant, genocidal agenda of Saturday’s fascist event. We also send solidarity and love to those in Berkeley, California facing fascist threats on Sunday, August 5th.

“We call on communities across America to address the deep history of white supremacy, recently amplified by the Trump administration, that generates this latest wave of fascist terror.”