Days of Action Against White Supremacy

By Fighting Words Staff

As of July 23, at least 14 organizations have joined together to mark the second anniversary of Charlottesville by calling for National Days of Action Against White Supremacy – Impeach Trump for Hate Crimes. Plans are being made to hold marches, demonstrations and other activities on August 10th and 11th. Organizations include:

National endorsers

Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI)
Moratorium NOW! Coalition
Wisconsin Bail Out The People Movement
Peoples Alliance – Bay Area
In Defense of Our Lives
Peoples Power Assembly
Youth Against War and Racism
Anti Police-Terror Project
Communist Workers League
Struggle – La Lucha for Socialism
Socialist Unity Party
Labor Against Racist Terror
Colectiva Brown Berets de la Bahia
Fox AntiFa
CODEPINK San Francisco
Workers World Party

In announcing this event, the organizations issued the following statement:

For the second anniversary of Charlottesville (Aug. 10-11), a call for: National Days of Action Against White Supremacy – Impeach Trump for Hate Crimes

 We hold in our hearts the memory of anti-racist activist Heather Heyer and the dozens injured by the fascists in Charlottesville, including Deandre Harris, a 20-year-old Black man, who was beaten with metal poles in a parking lot by a fascist gang, putting him in the hospital. While it was a Nazi thug who murdered Heather, it is the bigot-in-chief Donald Trump, endorser of the “very fine” Nazi and Klan scum, who has enshrined their genocidal ideology as his national policy against the disabled, the LGBTQ+ community, and all People of Color.

Migrants at our southern border, who are “engaged in a federally protected activity” of seeking asylum, are having their babies ripped from their parents arms, their children kidnapped and placed in cages, women forced to drink out of toilets. Cages are so crowded that no one can even lie on the floor. Food, soap, even toothbrushes are denied them, all on the orders from Trump because of their “race” and “national origin.” This meets the very definition of a federal hate crime multiplied thousands of times.

Trump is showing off his brutality “stripes” to his rich friends on Wall Street, to show them how tough he’ll be to those who oppose their cutbacks, like the dismantling of Obamacare. We’re supposed to fight over the scraps that they grant us. That’s why they’ve poured more than $100 million into Trump’s re-election campaign. We demand that Congress immediately impeach Trump for hate crimes and dump his whole gang of rich bigots!

We ask that organizations who agree with this message organize and publicize an activity within their community on these dates. Message us to have your group’s name added to this call.

Sponsoring and endorsing organizations have already announced actions in Detroit, Wisconsin and the Bay Area, with more in the works. Among the announced actions include a demonstration at the San Francisco offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has so far refused to permit impeachment hearings against Trump.

Fascist riot in Charlottesville by Trump’s “very fine” Nazis

Two years ago, hundreds of Nazi and Klan thugs marched through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia to spread their vicious message of racist hatred and terror. But they did not go unopposed. Despite the protection by the cops of these fascists, many of whom carried metal poles, clubs and even rifles, thousands of anti-racist activists met this scum in the streets to shut them and their “Unite the Right” riot of violence down.

But for their bravery, these courageous anti-racist fighters paid a terrible price. Deandre Harris, a 20-year-old Black man, was beaten with metal poles in a parking lot by a fascist gang, putting him in the hospital.

And when the anti-racists held a march through downtown, the cops left the march unprotected from road traffic. A Nazi thug named James Fields plowed his car into the march, injuring two dozen people, and murdering young Heather Heyer, a restaurant worker.

Two days later, Donald Trump outraged the country by saying that the Nazis and Klan at Charlottesville included “very fine people.” Scoffing at any criticism of his open avowal of white supremacy, Trump has savagely attacked Muslims, disabled people, women, LGBTQ+ people, and particularly migrants, not only in speeches and tweets, but also in national policy. His most recent attacks on four young congresswomen, all from oppressed communities’ using the racist trope that they must “return to their own countries,” show his racist contempt for every oppressed member of the working class.

Trump has targeted his policies toward thousands of migrants seeking sanctuary from the terrible U.S. imperialist-spawned violence in their home countries in Central America. Herded into cages along the border that can only be called concentration camps, children including babies have been ripped from their parents, people have been crowded so densely that they cannot even lay down to sleep. While thousands are suffering, some adults and even some children have died from these terrible conditions. Trump says openly that the purpose of these barbaric policies is to intimidate people from seeking their legally entitled asylum in the U.S.

While this has sparked outrage among the working class in the U.S., it has won widespread support from Wall Street, who have already poured in more than $100 million into Trump’s campaign coffers. In the face of an oncoming capitalist crisis, they see Trump as just the man to suppress any opposition to their “necessary” cutbacks and austerity to keep the money flowing into their vaults.

In 1968, in response to outrage over Klan violence, Congress passed federal hate crimes legislation which  “made it a crime to use, or threaten to use, force to willfully interfere with any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin and because the person is participating  in a federally protected activity.” In 2009, that law was expanded and strengthened by the passage of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which “added new federal protections against crimes based on gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”

The federal hate laws are supposed to be enforced by the Attorney General, but since AG Barr has proven to be a servile minion of Trump, it ought to be up to the Democratic-led Congress to impeach Trump based on his many hate crimes.

Puerto Rico shows the way

On July 22 millions of people shut down the entire island of Puerto Rico. They poured in the streets in a massive show of strength demanding the impeachment of Governor Ricardo Rosselló for his bigoted anti LGBTQ+ chats with other high officials, which also demeaned those that died in the horrific Hurricane Maria in 2017. This has shaken the corrupt Puerto Rican establishment to the core.

This action by the people of Puerto Rico, long ago colonized by U.S. imperialism, and who only received a few rolls of paper towels from Trump in the aftermath of the terrible hurricane, have set for us a tremendous example of how we can fight back against this onslaught of capitalist greed and white supremacy.

The best way that our class can mark Charlottesville and remember those who were killed and wounded at the hands of the Nazis and Klan is to hit back at their white supremacist Boss Trump and his wealthy corporate backers.  Organize an action that demands an end of this genocidal ideology and the immediate impeachment of Trump for his hate and bigotry.

For updates, please visit the Facebook event page:

Last update: Aug. 9, 2019