White Lives Matter rally planned Sunday in Huntington Beach, California
The rally is expected to be met by counterdemonstrations by a local Black Lives Matter chapter
The shoreside California city of Huntington Beach could be the scene of a White Lives Matter rally today, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Organized by the Loyal White Knights, the event is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. California time and has attracted the attention of local groups like Black Lives Matter Huntington Beach, who planned a counterdemonstration hours earlier at Pier Plaza.
“I made a call-out to everybody and anybody around the city that cares at all — and there are a lot of people that care,” Black Lives Matter Huntington Beach founder Tory Johnson said in the Times. “We need to show that Huntington Beach will no longer tolerate racism in any way, shape or form. This will not be a reflection of our city.”
Lt. Brian Smith of the Huntington Beach Police Department said that authorities have been unable to confirm whether the rally will actually take place, but that hasn’t stopped them from taking measures such as enhancing their security presence and positioning helicopters on standby.
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“Every rally that we have there’s always the possibility for some violence to occur,” he said. “That’s always a concern for us regardless of what the group is or the positions they’re taking are.”
Huntington Beach, about 40 miles south of Los Angeles, and nearby areas of Newport Beach and Long Beach have reportedly seen an inpouring of fliers with Ku Klux Klan propaganda over the past few weeks that have been anonymously delivered to homes, according to the LA Times. Smith, however, said police do not suspect that the fliers and the rally are connected.
Carrie Braun, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, assures the community they will be supported by their regional mounted unit, reports the LA Times.
“That’s the extent of our involvement at this time,” Braun said. “We are monitoring open-source information to monitor additional events in our jurisdiction, but at this time we aren’t aware of any.”
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A staunchly Republican city, Huntington Beach harbors a past of violently-charged racial episodes, such as periods in the 1980s and 1990s when racist skinheads prowled the area attacking minorities, as noted by the LA Times.
“These groups will continue to come back unless the larger community stands against them,” Mary Adams Urashima, a Huntington Beach resident and historian, told the paper. “That has always been the case, historically, wherever the Klan or white supremacy shows up.”
Last year, the very pier to potentially host today’s rally served as a platform for supports of former President Donald Trump.
“We can’t stop people from coming to the pier, and we’re not going to be able to stop people from hiding behind the 1st Amendment to spew hateful rhetoric that’s really divisive in our community,” Mayor Kim Carr said, “but what we can do is counter it with these types of events.”
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