The terrorist responsible for the Lafayette, Louisiana killings, identified by police John Russell Houser, of Phenix City, Alabama, is associated with White Supremacy and Nazi ideologies and groups. John Russell Houser, aka “Rusty Houser,” shot to death Mayci Breaux, 21, who died at the scene, and Jillian Johnson, 33, who died later at a nearby hospital. In a terror attack on a Lafayette, Louisiana movie theater, he also injured 9 others, and when his efforts to escape failed, he took his life.
John R. Houser, identified by police, as Terrorist in Lafayette, LA Attack
The Anti-American terrorist John R. Houser (aka Rusty Houser) referred to the United States as “this filth farm called the US. “ The terrorist John Houser stated that he was a graduate of Faulkner University, had owned his own business, and had made radio appearances. The white supremacist terrorist viewed that “upper class whites” were every much an enemy as African-Americans, gay, and Jewish people.
WAFB Confirms John Houser from Phenix City, Alabama
However, Rusty Houser states about the Nazi group “I found their website. The videos told me that this is a legitimate effort to solve problems.The leaders of the group are in fact leaders.Intelligent,well spoken,and exercising good faith.” Rusty Houser then urges readers to support White Supremacist groups: “Type in WHITE POWER GROUPS and you get mag articles about their never ending claims of racism, and no information of how to find White power groups you might want to join.” In addition, some media have noted his flying Nazi Swastika Flag on his bar in Georgia.
R.E.A.L. has learned that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has also done research on John “Rusty” Houser, and states that the Lafayette Terrorist had made other references to his support for Adolf Hitler. SPLC reports: “He sang the praise of Adolf Hitler many times, saying ‘Hitler is loved for the results of his pragmatism,’ last January on the website stateofmind13.com.”
Lafayette Terrorist John “Rusty” Houser Praised Nazi Leader Adolf Hitler – 6 Months Prior to Terrorist Attack (Screenshot State of Mind)
Consistent with the ideologies of other white supremacist groups, Rusty Houser also wrote about how African-Americans have “a lower learning ability. ”
Rusty Houser Defends Nazi Group (Screenshot of Debate Politics)
Nazi Rusty Houser was an active supporter of the Nazi Golden Dawn group’s New York branch. The New York branch of the Nazi Golden Dawn, which he sought to urge an alliance of people against “blacks, upper class whites, and misfits.”
Nazi Terrorist Rusty Holder Writings on “Golden Dawn” Nazi New York Website (Screenshot: Golden Dawn NY)Terrorist Rusty Houser Promotes Nazi Group’s Goal of Expansion (Screenshot: Golden Dawn NY)
His pro-Nazi and White Supremacist goals was to ally with people in other nations to create a shared extremist force against African-Americans and others, and promoted hatred against homosexual individuals.
Terrorist Rusty Houser Promoted Hatred against African-Americans and Jewish People on Nazi Web Site (Screenshot: Golden Dawn NY)Terrorist Rusty Houser Called for Unity of Russia and United States in Nazi Racial War (Screenshot Golden Dawn NY)
John R. Houser also used the Twitter Account JRustyHouser to promote the hate group Westboro Baptist Church, which this terrorist called “the last real church in America.”
Terrorist John Houser Promotes Hate Group “Westboro Baptist Church”
fter Nazi white supremacist terrorist John “Rusty” Houser was killing innocent people in a Lafayette, Louisiana movie theater, white supremacists with the Stormfront hate group were calling for MORE killings – specifically targeting African-Americans. Stormfront white supremacists from Lafayette, LA and other parts of Louisiana have sought to organize “white nationalist” movements in the area.
Stormfront white supremacist member “WhiteIsRight88” wrote calling for murders against African-Americans “they should take their frustration out on negro night clubs and negro infested street corners. Those are the places that need shooting.”
Stormfront White Supremacist Racist Hate Group: Message After Lafayette Attack Calls for Attacks Against African-Americans (Screenshot)
This white supremacist also wrote “lets just hope and pray the individuals he killed were some negroes.” (The numbers 88 is a code in the white supremacist world symbolizes their racist support for Adolf Hitler as “Heil Hitler”.)
Stormfront White Supremacist Racist Hate Group: Message After Lafayette Attack Prays “He Killed Some Negroes” (Screenshot)
Another white supremacist member “beast9” wrote “If you are going to go out go out big and take dozens with you. Pick your targets well… Make it count.” He also writes “I am ready” with his gun.
Stormfront White Supremacist Racist Hate Group: Message After Lafayette Attack Calls for Terrorists to “Take Dozens With You” (Screenshot)Stormfront White Supremacist Racist Hate Group: Message After Lafayette Attack Calls for Racists to Have Guns (Screenshot)
Over the past year, those in America who have been less aware of the racial oppression and terrorism of African-Americans by official institutions and those in law enforcement have been woken up. The travesty a year ago, in Ferguson, Missouri, seeing tanks rolling down the streets of our cities, with riot places shooting gas and bullets at African-American protesters will not leave the conscience of patriotic Americans. Americans heard how readily people abusing their authority would take the life of an African-American, threaten children in the street, or even shoot a pastor trying to keep the peace.
There is only one word for such atrocities: Terrorism – “the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization,” “the unlawful use of force and violence to intimidate or coerce a segment of a population,” “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce.”
Patriotic Americans must reject the forces of terror and oppression that seek to threaten our universal human rights from whatever source they come. As we are united in our human rights, so we must be united against those who would use terrorist tactics to take them away.
But it just keeps getting worse and worse. Every new “revelation” of institutional abuse leaves too many Americans stunned, outraged, mouth agape, with a dizzying cognitive dissonance – how – could this be in “our country”? What will it take for the American people to say ENOUGH?
The truth is, however, it has been “worse” for a long, but the collective American public never really saw this, as it wasn’t reported by the largely white-controlled media. The technical innovations of the iPhones, YouTube, and Twitter combined has changed this dynamic, and now the white-controlled media is now chasing the news that most of the rest of the public already knows and is acting on.
We also need to get the white steam media to change after such abuses; they don’t need to interview those with a professional obligation to defend ideologies or institutions right or wrong – they need to interview those committed to our universal human rights.
When people start to find out the truth about things, they ask inconvenient questions – inconvenient only to those who THINK they are in power. Let us remind ourselves and each other who is REALLY in charge in America: WE ARE. Our representative government represents us, and everything they do good and bad both, is a reflection on our judgment and our willingness to accept their actions. If they are doing something wrong, we need to TELL THEM, and make it CLEAR we WILL NOT ACCEPT IT.
Not just in Baltimore, New York City, Cleveland, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, but anywhere and everywhere we see injustice. We need to organize to take our country back from those who would abuse our fellow Americans and fellow human beings. This includes rejecting any candidate for any American office who doesn’t understand the PRIORITY of Americans’ universal human rights.
We need to fight for the human rights of African-Americans. To white Americans, let’s be clear, that’s not just “their” responsibility – that’s OUR responsibility.
The growing terrorist violence against African-Americans has encouraged white supremacist groups, Confederates and Nazi extremists, who support, promote, and engage in such terrorist violence including the attack in June of the Charleston, South Carolina African-American church by white supremacist terrorist Dylann Roof, and subsequent arson attacks on multiple African-American churches.
We must defy terrorist attacks on our human rights from every source.
ENOUGH
Our defense of our universal human rights must be the same as it is when we challenge abuses of human rights in Sudan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, Myanmar, Nigeria, Malaysia, Thailand, or anywhere in the world, without exception – including the United States of America. As we challenge human rights abusers around the world, so we must challenge human rights abusers in America – from any and every source.
This must also include extremists who terrorize our people from institutional groups.
When law enforcement in any other part of the world oppresses, victimizes, and KILLS minority individuals, do we say “well, you have to understand?” We do not. Everyone knows I have background in law enforcement, and I have worked hard to maintain fairness and integrity in the American justice system. But clearly, we cannot be blind to unfairness and lack of integrity that we see now in our justice system. Americans cannot be hypocrites on this.
Over the past year, Americans keep waking up to one explosion of oppression after another in city after city, as we see the photographs, the videos, and learn the names of African-Americans who are victimized — by extremists in our law enforcement who MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO REPRESENT AMERICA.
Today, as this is written another travesty of justice takes place, this time again in Texas, where a young African-American woman, Sandra Bland, was pulled over for a routine traffic issue, which escalated into a white law enforcement member taking extremist measures to threaten to “light her up” with a Taser gun because she was smoking a cigarette and did not show him the deference that he desired. She was ripped out of her car, her head beaten on the ground, and when she told the extremist Brian Encinia that she had Epilepsy, his response was “good.” She ended up dead in a Texas jail cell, with the case under investigation. The video of the arrest was edited and a federal investigation is underway.
We must stand to reject such terrorist efforts to unlawfully coerce and intimidate our citizens – no matter the source of such terrorism is. When it comes from those who are to represent the American people, the American people MUST condemn and reject such abuse of authority.
This Spring, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) had an extensive private outreach campaign to our national law enforcement agencies, including Texas authorities. The goal was to get leaders in law enforcement to publicly reaffirm their support for the Constitution of the United States as a means to defy and discourage extremists in law enforcement who would hijack the authority we have given them. That campaign was not successful. The deafening silence that was received when R.E.A.L. reached out with many offers of kindness was a statement of its own. R.E.A.L. has been in contact with a new coalition called “Justice Together” that is working for reform of law enforcement agencies.
Such institutional change takes time.
But just as we have seen the racist Confederate flag start to come down after the white supremacist terror attack by Nazi/Confederate Dylann Roof, so we must use our national outrage to seek other changes.
We cannot and we MUST not accept the terrorism of the American people, whether it is by foreign extremists, domestic extremists, or God Forbid, by those who represent us. Acts of terrorism must be consistently rejected no matter who the criminal terrorist culprit is, and whether or not the terrorist is citizen of our nation, or even if the terrorist wears a badge.
Wrong is Wrong. Our human rights and laws apply equally to all people, as do our responsibilities.
We must stand defiant against those who would terrorize African-Americans and all Americans across the nation, just as we are responsible for equality and liberty.
It is the position of the volunteer human rights group Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L) that the growing national commitment to eliminate symbols of white supremacist hatred in public areas, must include the Confederate Flag and monument, as well as the racist symbols of Nazism and Adolf Hitler.
While patriotic Americans across this nation are turning their back on the white supremacy symbol of hatred, racism, and slavery of the Confederate flag, you would imagine more of the American people have developed a determination to stand up against such symbols of hate. The “normalization” of the racist image of that universal monster against humanity, Adolf Hitler, is a disgrace and a racist attack on the human rights of all human beings – of every religion, every race, and every identity group. We must Never Forget.
You would think that the message “Take It Down” is being heard by many of the white Americans in this nation.
Yet less than 20 miles from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, a Maryland suburb’s theater group has decided that this is the best time to do a production of the musical “The Producers,” described by the Washington Post with a headline “Hitler musical caper rides again in the ‘The Producers’ at Olney.”
Hitler… musical… caper….?
The obscenity of the words together is beyond description.
But that’s the Washington Post entertainment section, even in 2015. The argument rationalizing such obscenity as entertainment cannot outweigh our concerns for the future and our responsibility to defy the legacy of racist hatred that Adolf Hitler has left.
Washington Post describes Olney Theatre Center in Maryland showing “Hitler musical caper” (Screenshot: Washington Post)Olney Theatre Center Refers to its “Hitler Musical” on Twitter
While our nation is under attack by white supremacist terrorists from Confederates and their Nazi allies, the Olney Theatre Center (OTC) in Olney, Maryland suburbs of Washington DC has decided now is a good time to have a “satire” with the hate symbol of Adolf Hitler, and a musical number to Adolf Hitler. The Olney Theatre Center board president, attorneyJennifer Kneeland, defends this “Hitler musical caper,” because she states to us that this is “a satire,” which “has been well-received by our community and praised.”
The concept that the hate image of Adolf Hitler and his swastika is somehow less offensive than the despicable Confederate flag demonstrates the failure of Americans to understand the history behind the monster Hitler and his disciples’ twisted involvement with the white supremacy movement around the world and (as we have seen from recent terrorist attacks) within the United States.
It is a repugnant idea that we should need to remind any Americans of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi “racially superior” crimes against humanity in the olocaust murder of 6 million Jews, 2 million non-Jewish Ukrainians, another 9 million Russian soldiers killed, 11.7 non-Jewish Russian and Russian territory citizens, (a total estimated 26 million killed in former Soviet nations), the Nazi killing of many others: non-Jewish women, other Europeans, gays, disabled, children, people of African descent, and numerous others. Within the United States of America, 400,000 soldiers died fighting Hitler and his Axis powers. In the former Soviet countries, He stands alone as one of the most notorious symbols of racial hatred not only in the past century, but in all of human history, as truly an ENEMY OF MANKIND. But the most important fact remains, Nazi murders continue in the United States of America and around the world today.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights created in December 10, 1948, after the atrocities of Hitler and his Nazi acknowledges to the WORLD that”disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.”
Americans would certainly like to believe that the violence and crimes of the Nazi ideology died with the Mass Murderer Hitler and the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, a war where over 400,000 American soldiers gave their lives – nearly the same amount of American patriotic soldiers who died in the fight a century earlier against the Confederate forces of slavery. Many from American families fought and died to fight against the mass-murderer Adolf Hitler as well as the criminal Confederate forces of slavery.
These Americans were not just inconvenienced. They did not just lose some money. They paid the ultimate sacrifice – willing and knowingly – to defy such forces and symbols of racist hatred, mass-murder, and violence. Is our weakness how we honor their sacrifices?
B’nai B’rith International Understands that We Must Defy Symbols of Racist Hate
The cruel reality has been for many years, that the Nazi ideology continues to attack and spread in this and other nations, and its criminals of hatred continue to take the lives of Americans. In league with their Confederate white supremacist brethren, it now takes on a heightened threat to African-Americans in this nation.
Nazi terrorism in the United States and around the world has grown as “normalization” of such Nazi images of racist hate continue to grow and become “acceptable.” Unlike 1968, this is not a few Nazi extremist, but using the Internet, Nazi extremist gangs are becoming a growing global network of Nazi hatred and racist violence, including regular murder and torture. “The Producers” fails to recognize that while audiences laugh at the idea of past Nazis, present day Nazi commit regular acts of terrorism: synagogues are attacked, churches are attacked, African-Americans are killed, children are murdered, women are killed, and gay men are being kidnapped, raped, and killed by Nazi terrorists. These Nazi terrorists are enabled to recruit others in such ideologies of hate, aided in part by the “normalization” of such symbols of hatred.
Our nation saw such a terrorist attack on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in June 2009. I know that this particularly well, because I had been assisted by the only victim of that terrorist attack, an African-American man from Maryland named Stephen Tyrone Johns.
I had the opportunity to assist in April 2009 at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) reading of the names of those who were killed in Adolf Hitler’s crimes against humanity. This is done on Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) in the Hall of Remembrance with an eternal flame which flickers to remember those who Adolf Hitler had murdered. On the wall is a quote from Deuteronomy, which I have mentioned before, “I call heaven and Earth to witness this day; I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse, choose life – that you and your offspring shall live.”
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum – “Choose Life”
When we choose racism and when we decide that it is not “our responsibility” to challenge racism that we WITNESS, we don’t “choose life,” but we abandon our moral accountability for life not just for others, but also for ourselves.
As I am not Jewish, I thought I might felt awkward in my role to help in the reading of the names, but it was clear that the readers shared our conviction that such CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY should never be forgotten, and people read the names from all races, religions, ethnic groups. I could see the compassion in the hearts of a young Asian girl who teared, and an African-American girl whose tears ran down her face as she REMEMBERED – NEVER AGAIN.
Genocide is an open wound on the human soul, and only our joint determination to defy such criminals and those who would trivialize their crimes will allow the wound to begin to heal.
Leaving the museum, I was helped out by a young African-American man who was a security guard, Maryland’s Stephen Tyrone Johns.
Terrorist Attack on U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Murder of Stephen Tyrone Johns (Photos: Left – AP, Right – USHMM)
I recognized his photograph in the news, two months later, when a white supremacist with the twisted hybrid of Confederate and Nazi ideologies named James Von Brunn attacked this USHMM in our nation’s capital. The terrorist Von Brunn murdered African-American security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns, whose only crime was to try to open the door for the man. His death managed to slow the terrorist enough to alert the other guards to stop the terrorist Von Brunn.
Nazi-Inspired Terrorist James Von Brunn Attacked U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was FULL of young schoolchildren, during Nazi white supremacist James Von Brunn’s terrorist attack. If he had not been stopped…
The whitestream media failed to call this the “terrorist attack” that it was. It is a source of never-ending shame to these great United States of America that when an African-American is killed, somehow our media can’t find its way to call that a “terrorist attack.” Days after the attack, Nazis and white supremacists were openly praising Von Brunn’s terrorism, and the story was readily forgotten by the local press. R.E.A.L. continued to report on this, while the local media moved on.
Maryland’s Stephen Tyrone Johns was buried in Maryland. His funeral was held at the Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in Fort Washington. Prior to the funeral, the church received threats from white supremacists, but Pastor Grainger Browning Jr. stood his ground in his eulogy to Stephen Johns.
Ebenezer AME Pastor Browning said that “the same hate that created slavery was the same hate that caused the Holocaust.”
It is the same hate and the same common enemy to the human race of every color and religion.
We have seen such Nazi-led and inspired terrorism in the United States over the past 20 years. In recent time, this included the Oklahoma City terrorist attack on April 19, 1995 (the day before Hitler’s birthday celebrated by such Nazi terrorists) on the Oklahoma City federal building by terrorist Timothy McVeigh. The terrorist was inspired by the Nazi Turner Diaries and his Nazi terrorist co-conspirators, who murdered 169 Americans including 19 babies and children killed in the day care center there.
Timothy McVeigh’s Terrorist Attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Building
Nor would it be the last Nazi-inspired terror attack we would witness. R.E.A.L. reported that Stormfront member Daniel Cowart shot the windows out of a Tennessee church and with his Confederate terror co-conspirator Paul Schlesselman, he plotted the terrorist attack on another African-American church, planning to kill over 100 as well as assassinate Barack Obama. Their initial target was to kill 88 African-Americans. Why 88? The number “88” in white supremacist world stands for “HH,” or “Heil Hitler.”
Convicted Terrorist Daniel Cowart with Swastika Tattoo and Rifle (Photo: Inquister)
Just Like Maryland Theater Singing for Hitler – Nazi White Supremacist Terrorist Daniel Cowart and White Supremacist Singing for Adolf Hitler (Source: SPLC)
We have seen other connections to terrorist attacks by Nazis in this country, linked to the white supremacist Stormfront group, including Wade Michael Page, and Stormfront members’ support for terrorist attacks on the U.S. Pentagon and an IRS building in Texas, as well as praise by Stormfront members for the terrorist attack by Dylann Roof. (The FBI is finally beginning to investigate this Stormfront organization.)
Stormfront Member and Terrorist Wade Michael Page Killed 6 Sikhs
In June 2015, we saw the terrorist attack by Dylann Roof killing 9 African-American Christian worshipers during a Bible Study meeting at the Emmanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina. The whitestream media refers to it as a “shooting,” rather than a terrorist attack, but those with a conscience know exactly what it was.
Charleston White Supremacist Terrorist Dylann Roof Believed to be Part of Nazi Web Site
An analysis of the terrorist Dylann Roof’s “manifesto” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) shows that it is likely that the white supremacist terrorist Dylann Roof was a regular user named “Aryanblood1488” on the Nazi forum “The Daily Stormer.” Dylann Roof’s terrorist attack on the Emmanuel AME church left 9 dead during a prayer session; the killer murdered them simply because they were African-Americans.
Once again, Maryland’s Ebenezer AME Pastor Grainger Browning Jr. was at a funeral for victims of a terrorist attack at the Charleston Emmanuel AME church, but this time it was for a fellow pastor and eight other African-American worshipers.
Just as Nazi Daniel Cowart attacked African-American churches and Dylann Roof’s recent terrorist attack on the Charleston African-American churches, so we have seen numerous other attacks on African-American churches, as well as synagogues, mosques, and diverse houses of worship. The same racist hatred follows in these attacks including a reported three arson attacks on African-American churches in Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina, and suspected in South Carolina. 180 uncontrolled deliberate arson fires are set to destroy American houses of worship every year. The attacks on African-American churches may officially be viewed as “isolated incidents,” but we know better. We don’t need a court of law to know the truth.
Racist Hatred and Terrorism Continues to Attack African-American Churches and Other Houses of Worship
No, racist hate is not “history.” It remains a near and present danger to the American people, their freedoms, and their lives.
Adolf Hitler is and has been a symbol of hatred not just to the Jews he targeted in his twisted Holocaust, but also to African-Americans and anyone who failed to meet his white supremacist “racial purity” terrorist model of seeking a twisted cause of “racial hygiene,” which continues today. Adolf Hitler, the swastika, and the Nazi ideology remains a symbol of global racist terrorism, in cases that we have repeatedly seen in the United States of America.
These despicable figures and symbols of Nazi racist hatred in public facilities is just as much a symbol of racist hatred as the Confederate flag in defense of white supremacy. The United States Department of Justice is responsible for enforcing the law to prevent racist from using methods of intimidation to people due to their race, religion, etc. in public facilities under the 1968 Civil Rights Act. This is described in federal law 18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(2), which includes public theaters and places of entertainment, as described in 18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(2)(f). We will actively call upon the Department of Justice to enforce this law.
We know too well here in Maryland about the terrorist hate and violence spawned Adolf Hitler’s Nazi ideology. Maryland citizens have paid the price with their lives by those inspired by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi ideology, such as Maryland terrorist James Von Brunn. Our citizens’ blood is on the mass-murdering hands of Adolf Hitler and his disciples of hate. Americans in Olney have faced threats from such Nazi racist disciples of the mass-murderer Adolf Hitler.
Maryland’s Stephen Johns will not be remembered by enough people as a courageous hero in African-American history; like all of us, he will be too quickly forgotten, even by his neighbors in Maryland, and those who should know better. But his sacrifice will not be forgotten here by those who are Responsible for Equality And Liberty. He will never be forgotten in our hearts and our prayers. The lesson to defy white supremacist Nazi terror in our midst will also never be forgotten.
R.E.A.L. Volunteers Remember the Terrorist Attack on U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
After the attack on the Washington DC USHMM, the white supremacist hate group VDARE organization held a rally with Patrick Buchanan in McLean, Virginia. VDARE’s Peter Brimelow had praised Nazi terrorist James Von Brunn as an “intelligent man.” R.E.A.L. was there to protest VDARE in McLean, in Baltimore, and other locations. White supremacists then sought to have massive recruitment campaigns in our nation’s capital, and as history shows that did not happen. We challenge and defy such white supremacist across the nation and the world, as nothing less than an ideology of terrorism.
R.E.A.L.’s Jeffrey Imm urges passing motorists to let VDARE know how they feel about racism
Responsible for Equality And Liberty also makes this promise. We will defend every city and every nation from these racist monsters, to the best of our volunteers’ ability. Patriotic Americans will defy racists and symbols of racism wherever they go.
But to those promoting racism and with the symbols of racist hatred, know this. You will not succeed in the Washington DC area without our DEFIANT PROTEST. There has been more than enough racist filth smeared on our nation’s capital in our life times. From Freedom Plaza outward, we will defy those with the ideology and symbols of racist hatred. The blood of Stephen Johns and the bullet holes in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was the moment we had to say ENOUGH.
We will continue to defy white supremacist organizations and their ideology of racist hatred, and their enablers. Those promoting the symbols of racial hatred and violence will find the defenders of human rights and dignity are stubborn and persistent. After all, it is the least we can do.
In protection of Americans at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, Stephen Johns gave his LIFE. Surely we can be inconvenienced. Surely we can find the time and the energy to defy Nazi white supremacist hatred. Surely we can find the room in our lives to tell those who think Adolf Hitler is a joke, how WRONG THEY ARE.
R.E.A.L.’s Jeffrey Imm at Protest in Front of Olney Theatre Center. Prior to Protest, theater called to police to try to stop protest
So to my fellow patriotic Americans and friends in human rights, Responsible for Equality And Liberty is inviting to join us in Maryland to protest the Nazi symbols which represent racist hatred. We contacted the Olney Theatre Center first; we pleaded with them to reconsider. They stand by their “comedy satire” on the racist mass-murderer Adolf Hitler, while the victims of the latest terror attack have just been buried, and burned down houses of worship are in ashes.
We urge you to contact the Olney Theatre Center and let them know you don’t think Adolf Hitler is “funny.” You can let them know on Twitter at @OlneyTheatre. You can see their postings of how they think Adolf Hitler is “funny,” and one actor thinks it is a joke to “see what the fuhrer is about.” This normalization of a racist, mass-murderer and a SYMBOL of Racism is what we must REJECT.
Some of those publicly “favoriting” such mocking comments like “see what all the fuhrer is about” are conservative “Ace of Spades” blog writerGabriel Malor (screenshot) and Brandon Ambrosino (screenshot). Baltimore dancer (who apparently works on this show) Brandon Ambrosino claims to write for the New York Times, Atlantic, Time, etc., but really does VOX blog articles. Brandon Ambrosino spent 30 minutes arguing with me at the July 11 protest claiming that when theater goers enjoy Racist Hate symbols like Hitler, we shouldn’t protest Hitler events. After all, he argued – if there are more people singing for Hitler than those protesting, shouldn’t those singing for Hitler be right? The efforts to “normalize” racist symbol Adolf Hitler are in direct contradiction to America’s rejection of the racist symbol of the Confederate Flag. Americans respecting human rights know the difference between RIGHT and WRONG.
We need you to urge them to end the scenes in the Olney Theatre presentation about Adolf Hitler and the twisted “comedy” of “Springtime for Hitler.” They will tell you it is a satire. They will tell you it is their artistic freedom. They will get Mel Brooks and theater reviewers to defend how “funny” it is. Mr. Brooks, actors, and comedians have a right to their personal twisted sense of humor. But when symbols of racist hatred are displayed in public areas, mocking the tragedies the world has suffered, they need to take their sense of “humor” elsewhere.
TELL THEM “ENOUGH.”
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi swastika belong in the same trash can of history with the Confederate Flag and Confederate monuments.
Maryland, our nation, and the world has paid with enough blood, enough tears, and enough misery that we have a right to defend the human dignity of all those who have suffered in American and around the world from these racist mass-murderers and monsters, should not be trivialized and made into “comedy.” Enough.
The Olney Theatre Center is located at: 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD 20832. It’s telephone number is: 301-924-4485, and the fax number is: 301-924-2654
Let actors Jason Graee and Michael Kostroff know that you just don’t think that the racist monster Adolf Hitler is “funny.”
To those of you in the Washington DC area, we will be holding public protests on the public street outside the Olney Theatre Center. For more information, contact us at usa@realcourage.org. We will keep the local police informed to ensure safety and protection. We held protests on July 11 and July 12. At our July 12 protest, theater goers screamed curse words from their automobiles. One theater goer came up to me and told me that he thought that the Holocaust “was funny.” I urge those who cannot protest to pray for these individuals.
As we MUST defy the Confederate Flag of white supremacy, racism, slavery, and hate, so we MUST also defy the symbols of racist Nazi ideology and the monster who inspired the death of so many Jews, so many people, so many children, so many families, and also certainly so many Americans – even in the Washington DC area, and continuing today.
We MUST DEFY this…. EVIL to all of humanity.
Behind the Eternal Flame in the Hall of Remembrance, it reads: “Only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully, lest you forget the thing your eyes saw, and lest these things depart your heart all the days of your life, and you shall make them known to your children to your children’s children.”
We will Never Forget, Maryland.
America, we must continue to work together for all people of all religions, all races, and all identity groups.
NEVER AGAIN.
That is why we MUST be Responsible for Equality And Liberty.
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) has new information on the support of Confederate terrorism by Stormfront members; the Stormfront group was founded by former Confederate Alabama Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Don Black.
Members of the Confederate white supremacist Stormfront group have been praising Confederate terrorist Dylann Roof who murdered 9 people at the Emmanuel AME Church, and they now mock church burnings across the country. Terrorist Dylann Roof has had both support among members of the white supremacist community, as well as defense for his twisted ideology of racial hate among members of pro-Confederate groups such as Stormfront. Dylann Roof was known to be an active poster for the Daily Stormer website, providing streaming radio links to the Confederate white supremacist Stormfront’s radio program.
Former Ku Klux Klan Leader Don Black’s Confederate Stormfront Group Members Praise Terrorism by Confederate Terrorist Dylann Roof – Killing 9 African-Americans
R.E.A.L has reported on the Confederate Stormfront hate group for years, including its members’ ties to terrorism in the United States of America. Many of the Stormfront members have logos with Confederate flag symbols and imagery, with some identifying their locations as within the “Confederate States of America (C.S.A.)”. Terrorists attacking the United States of America have come from within the Confederate Stormfront group, including known active Stormfront members Daniel Cowart, Wade Michael Page, and Richard Poplawski. Stormfront members have also praised a rogue’s list of terrorists attacking America, including white supremacist Paul Schlesselmann, white supremacist James Von Brunn, as well as terrorists Joseph Stack and Joseph Patrick Bedell – both of which attacked U.S. federal government buildings.
Confederate Stormfront Members Support for White Supremacist Terrorists
The increasing support for terrorist figures among members in the Confederate white supremacist group has come within the past five years. We call for the U.S. federal government to treat this growing public support for terrorism with the same attention it would give any other group with members active and promoting terrorist attacks on this nation. While the Stormfront members comments are offensive (we never mention the worst), it is important for Americans to know what values such Confederate white supremacists espouse and why we must reject their symbols of hate and racism.
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) has repeatedly reported on the history of the white supremacist, pro-Confederate Stormfront group and its support for terrorist actions against the United States of America. If such volunteer human rights activists can readily obtain such information, we urge those in our federal law enforcement and counterterrorism organizations to make statements on such support for terrorism in our country. We also urge the American and world media to identify such sources of terrorist support, and find impossible to that the world media does not have the resources to investigate and report on this human rights issue.
R.E.A.L. has reported on the history of Stormfront’s support for other terrorist individuals including Stormfront supporter Daniel Cowart, who along with fellow Confederate Paul Schlesselman attacked the Allen Baptist Church in Brownsville, Tennessee and also targeted an attack on 102 Christians in the Beech Grove Church of Christ in Tennessee, as a means of plotting mass-murder terrorism against African-American Christians. They also plotted an assassination plot against Barack Obama. As reported by CBS News, Stormfront forum writer and terrorist Daniel Cowart used the Confederate message board to get advice on guns and weapons.
R.E.A.L. has reported on Stormfront supporter and terrorist Wade Michael Page, who was not only a supporter of Stormfront, but also wore one of Stormfront’s “White Pride World Wide” shirts. Wade Michael Page committed terrorist murder of 6 Sikhs in Wisconsin. Terrorist Wade Michael Page was part of a Confederate musical band, End Apathy, which was promoted on Stormfront with Confederate imagery for performances in Richmond, Virginia and other locations in the South. His terrorist attack was repeatedlypraised by members of the Stormfront forum who applauded his terrorist act stating“finally a man whos got some nerve,” with the Stormfront editor and chief of staff defending the terrorism as “they’re asking for it” and calling for action in the “out and out war of crime being waged against us by the negroes.”
R.E.A.L has also reported on Stormfront supporter and terrorist Richard Poplawski in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who used the Stormfront forum to praise white supremacy and attack racial minorities. On Stormfront, the white supremacist terrorist also bragged and talked about his automatic weapons, which he used in an attack to murder Pittsburgh police.
Stormfront members praised terrorist James Von Brunn who attacked the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, while wearing a “Confederate soldier’s long coat cap.” The terrorist James Von Brunn murdered an African-American security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Stephen Tyrone Johns. Stormfront members praised his terrorist attack, stating “if you’re white, act white,” and calling for whites to “hate with violent passion,” and other Stormfront members stating that the “ZOG” media would lie about his terror attack, viewing the white supremacist terrorist as a “martyr.”
Stormfront Members Praised Attack by White Supremacist Terrorist James Von Brunn who Murdered Stephen Tyrone Johns in Attack on U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
In addition, Stormfront members praise other terrorists in their attacks on the United States of America, as part of their Confederate hatred against America.
Stormfront Members Praise Terrorist Attack on Austin, Texas IRS Office and Murder of African-American Vernon Hunter (Photo: Jana Birchum, Getty Images)
Confederate Stormfront Members Praised John Patrick Bedell’s Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon ( Photo from Washoe County Jail (AP Photo/Washoe County jail via the Reno Gazette Journal)
Once again, this provides evidence of the open and public support for terrorist attacks by members of the Confederate Stormfront organization and other white supremacist and Confederate groups. Stormfront members have even voiced support for the 9/11 terrorist attacks against America.
The history of Confederate terrorism is not new, but we have seen it continue to grow over the past 10 years, and we believe it is the responsibility of human rights activists, American patriots, United States government leaders and counter-terrorists to challenge and defy such Confederate terrorists.
After the defeat of the pro-slavery Confederate army by American patriots in 1865, the Confederate activists continued their war against American human rights through a combination of terrorist insurgent and propaganda methods. The first of the Confederate terrorists was John Wilkes Booth who assassinated U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 at the Ford Theater. Since then, the United States has continued to face an ongoing terrorist challenge from Confederate terrorists throughout our history.
The First Confederate Terrorist Attack on America: the Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln
American patriots have challenged the Confederate terrorist organization of the Ku Klux Klan since 1865, and we continue to do so again. The United States government created the Enforcement Act of 1871 (17 Stat. 13) to address the activities of the Confederate Ku Klux Klan terrorist organization, which has continued to plague this nation. The Confederate Ku Klux Klan terrorist organization has a long history of beatings, murders, lynchings, and bombings, including killing of civil rights leaders (with the cooperation of southern law enforcement), and infamous terrorist attacks on African-American houses of worship.
Confederate Ku Klux Klan Terrorists against African-American Churches and Their Victims – Little Girls
The Stormfront group was created by Confederate Ku Klux Klan leader Don Black as a way to re-package the appearance of such white supremacism, and whose members have been proven to support Confederate terrorism. Stormfront lists and actively promotes such Confederate Ku Klux Klan organizations throughout the United States.
Confederate Ku Klux Klan Leader Don Black Sought to Re-Package KKK Message with “Stormfront” Promoting Confederate Flag and History
In addition, we have reported on the praise by Confederate Stormfront members in the burning of African-American Christian Churches in the United States. Stormfront members finds the burning of American churches to be a source of great amusement to them; one Stormfront member writes “Burn Baby Burn,” regarding such churches while holding a Confederate flag.
Another Stormfront member mocks the destruction of a church (allegedly by lightning) that “Lightning is an ‘Act of God’, isn’t it?’. Other Stormfront members mock the arson and burning of African-American churches stating that “Obama probably just told them to burn down their own churches so he could funnel them money.” Stormfront members glamorize a box of matches on the racist website, writing “Unless they are used to set White people on fire, then it’s not a hate crime.”
Confederate Racist Website Stormfront Posts Image of Matches Regarding African-American Churches being Burned Down – Stating “Unless they are used to set white people on fire, then it’s not a hate crime.”
The Confederate Stormfront group has been part of “white nationalist” rallies that it has in different parts of the nation, including previously in Washington DC. When Stormfront’s recruitment event for the Washington DC area was protested by the free speech of R.E.A.L. and other human rights groups, the Confederate extremist group threatened R.E.A.L.’s founder and his family. Stormfront posted images with machine guns calling attacks on those who protested the event, and other white supremacists groups threatened R.E.A.L.’s founder stating “I’d be surprised if someone didn’t decide to correct your behavior,” and that “when someone does declares war on us, it’s OK to fight back. With any and all means.”
Confederate Stormfront Group “Machine Gun” Threat at R.E.A.L.’s Free Speech to Protest White Supremacist Recruitment Meetings
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)’s position remains constant and consistent: we support the Universal Human Rights of all people, including all of our fellow Americans. We do not believe a human rights campaign can be limited to any one part of the world, but we believe that our shared universal human rights must be protected for all people around the world, including minorities in the United States of America.
Furthermore, we do not believe that a campaign of merely passively calling for human rights and dignity in the face of human right threats is sufficient. We believe that to be RESPONSIBLE for equality and liberty – we must be active participants in a society which works to ensure such shared human rights, including rejecting and defying the forces of any extremist group which seeks to deny and degrade the human rights of our fellow human beings. Our challenge to Confederates and white supremacy in the United States is no different than our challenge to extremists attacking human rights anywhere in the world.
R.E.A.L. calls for the American people to reject and denounce the ongoing Confederate culture of white supremacy and its history of racism, slavery, and hate. R.E.A.L. calls for the American people to denounce and end the public honoring of any symbols or monuments to a Confederate culture of white supremacy, which has as its basis the rejection of equality, liberty, our shared universal human rights, and the truths that we hold self-evident as a nation, and as a human race. In a phrase, “Take It Down.”
Such determined stance in support of our human rights and dignity, and our rejection of the forces of racial hatred and violence is the obligation of all patriotic Americans.
Our support for our universal human rights is a fundamental basis for global trust, respect, and communications among all people, not only in the United States, but also around the world. We urge our fellow Americans and all those around the world to be Responsible for Equality And Liberty.
Orange Ribbon for Universal Human Rights – Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)
Over the past week, after the Confederate terrorist attack on the Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, a series of predominantly African-American Christian churches have burned down. The volunteer human rights group Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) calls for U.S. Department of Justice Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey to immediately form an interstate task-force to investigate these church fires in connection with the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(2)), and to use their authority to arrest the terrorists behind any arson attacks on houses of worship.
While the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) is leading this investigation from a technical perspective (identifying possible fire accelerant), we also need a coordinated, multi-region, federal law enforcement task force with a focus on Civil Rights Act crimes to play a central role in any investigation. While some of these church fires are being blamed on lightning and electrical failures, others are being viewed as deliberate arson. We believe that those familiar with Confederate terrorist tactics would recognize this as the signature of their past terrorist crimes against African-Americans.
Recent church burnings in the United States of America have included:
1. June 22, 2015 – Knoxville, Tennessee – College Hill Seventh-Day Adventist Church burned down – Cause: Arson – bags of dirt and bales of hay were left on fire outside the African-American church’s doors – and the hay was set on fire. The church van was also damaged by the fire. Status: Arson under investigation.
Knoxville, Tennessee – College Hill Seventh-Day Adventist Church Burned Down – Ruled Arson
2. June 23, 2015 – Macon, Georgia – God’s Power Church of Christ burned down – Cause: Arson – the church was gutted by fire and destroyed. Status: Arson under investigation. While the authorities believe it was arson, WMAZ reports that “Macon-Bibb’s fire chief says he still believes that a church fire last week was not a hate crime.”
June 23, 2015 – Macon, Georgia – God’s Power Church of Christ Burned Down
3. June 24, 2015 – Charlotte, North Carolina –Briar Creek Road Baptist Church burned down – Cause: Evidence of Arson damaging a building which housed church classrooms. Status: Arson under investigation. While the authorities believe it was arson, they state there is “no evidence of a hate crime, said Charlotte Fire Department spokeswoman Cynthia Robbins Shah-Khan.”
June 24, 2015 – Charlotte, NC – Church Fired Ruled Arson – Briar Creek Road Baptist Church
4. June 24, 2015 – Memphis, Tennessee – predominantly white American Fruitland Presbyterian Church burned down – Cause: Tennessee local law enforcement and media reporting fire may be due to lighting, with BATF calling it an “isolated incident.”
June 23, 2015 – Memphis, Tennessee – Fruitland Presbyterian Church Burned Down
5. June 26, 2015 – Warrensville, South Carolina – Glover Grove Baptist Church burned down — Cause: Undetermined. WRDW reports that investigators have have “have not been able to determine a cause to that fire, or an exact origin.”
June 26, 2015 – Warrensville, SC – Glover Grove Baptist Church Burned Down
June 27, 2015 – Elyria, Ohio – College Heights Baptist Church Burned Down
8. June 30, 2015 – Greeleyville, South Carolina – Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church burned down – Cause: Investigators believe “lightning strike.” WCIV and WLTX report that investigators state the fire was not caused by arson. The Mount Zion AME Church which was previously burned down by members of the Confederate Ku Klux Klan terrorist group Christopher Cox and Timothy Welch in June 1995, 20 years ago, who doused the church’s pews and pulpit with accelerants before setting the century-old house of worship ablaze.
June 30, 2015 – Greeleyville, South Carolina – Mount Zion AME Church Burned DownKKK Confederate White Supremacists Cox and Welch – who Burned Down Mount Zion AME Church in 1995
The history of white supremacist terrorism against churches and other houses of worship should deeply trouble all Americans and those concerned about such church fires. In any other nation in the world, if their were numerous cases of ARSON against a predominantly minority racial religious group in a week, after a terrorist attack on that house of worship, we would view this as an attack on our universal human rights — especially when a terrorist attacks and murders 9 people in such a house of worship the week before.
But these three recent cases of arson may be only the tip of the iceberg in terms of human rights atrocities by white supremacists and Confederates against American houses of worship. How many malicious and uncontrolled fires are we seeing at American religious institutions? The Washington Post reports statistics from the National Fire Protection Association that, “on average, between 2007 and 2011, roughly 180 intentional “not contained” fires per year — over 3 per week — spread and caused damage,” meaning they were “not contained” fires. These are deliberate acts to DESTROY houses of worship at 180 locations.
To ignore the links of terrorist individuals and groups to the destruction of these houses of worship is to ignore the obvious. Certainly, there are people who destroy houses of worship because they are deranged or for other reasons. But a deliberate attack to destroy a house of worship and terrorize a religious identity group is largely an act of terrorism. This is terrorism, regardless of your race, your religious identity, or your location in any part of the United States, and anywhere in the world. No one has a right to commit terrorism.
R.E.A.L. has previously posted about other attacks on American houses of worship, which we have seen too many times. This included attacks on houses of worship by Stormfront supporters and pro-Confederate terrorists Daniel Cowart and his partner Paul Schlesselman, who shot up the African-American Allen Baptist Church in Brownsville, Tennessee and also targeted an attack on 102 Christians in the Beech Grove Church of Christ in Tennessee; Cowart and Schesselman are currently in prison for their terrorism and terrorist plots. Stormfront members, stating they are part of the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.), defended Cowart and Schlesselman’s terrorism on churches, ending with quotes from the Confederate president Jefferson Davis, defending the cause of white supremacy. (The same Jefferson Davis you see highways named after and statutes defended in Richmond and other parts of the south.)
The pro-Confederate, white supremacist Stormfront organization (whose members havebeenrepeatedlylinkedto terrorism) finds the burning of American churches to be a source of great amusement to them; one Stormfront member mocks the destruction of a church that “Lightning is an “Act of God”, isn’t it?”. This extremist group has members who laugh about the church fires. This includes Stormfront members who mock burning of African-American churches stating that “Obama probably just told them to burn down their own churches so he could funnel them money.” Stormfront members glamorize a box of matches on the racist website, writing “Unless they are used to set White people on fire, then it’s not a hate crime.”
We have reported on the praise by Confederate Stormfront members in the burning of African-American Christian Churches in the United States. Stormfront members finds the burning of American churches to be a source of great amusement to them; one Stormfront member writes “Burn Baby Burn,” regarding such churches while holding a Confederate flag.
Another Stormfront member mocks the destruction of a church (allegedly by lightning) that “Lightning is an ‘Act of God’, isn’t it?’. Other Stormfront members mock the arson and burning of African-American churches stating that “Obama probably just told them to burn down their own churches so he could funnel them money.” Stormfront members glamorize a box of matches on the racist website, writing “Unless they are used to set White people on fire, then it’s not a hate crime.”
Confederate Racist Website Stormfront Posts Image of Matches Regarding African-American Churches being Burned Down – Stating “Unless they are used to set white people on fire, then it’s not a hate crime.”
Why do the Confederate racists mock such African-American church fires? Because they are convinced they can get AWAY with it, right in plain view of the public, and that the federal authorities will fail to act to stop such racist terrorism. They are convinced that the police in the South are more concerned about paint on the statue of Confederate traitors Jefferson Davis or Robert E. Lee than about protecting churches attended by African-Americans. So the Confederate racists at Stormfront post photos of matches and laugh about African-American churches burning down.
Yet our federal authorities with the resources of our nation cannot find “hate crime” motives in such contempt for African-Americans and churches across this nation. They need to find the aggressive motivation and organization of those who are determined to bring this to an end, and to publicly pursue such terrorists with the same vigor that other terrorists are pursued.
We would, of course, be rightly outraged at such a human rights crisis when it happens in Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, or any nation with minority houses of worship, which are attacked by terrorist individuals and groups. Human rights activists rightly call for that nation’s government to act to stop such human rights atrocities, in defiance of our universal human rights and the ICCPR. These human rights atrocities are not just a crime in those nations, they are also against INTERNATIONAL LAW.
Certainly, this must be the case in the United States of America as well.
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) calls for the voices of American human rights activists as well as worldwide human rights activists and the United Nations Human Rights Council for action. Given the continuing human rights violations against African-Americans in the United States of America, the failure of consistent application of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 regarding these violations, and a continuing state of intimidation against African-Americans by extremists, we call upon the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to monitor the human rights conditions in the United States of America — associated with institutional intimidation, oppression, and failure to protect houses of worship from acts of terrorism. We call upon the United Nations to monitor this human rights crisis, just as they would any other human rights crisis anywhere else in the world.
The United States government, and especially the state and local governments protecting Confederate white supremacist symbols, need to understand that, in addition to our law, there is international law and international standards, which we must abide to as global citizens.
The position of Responsible for Equality And Liberty on our shared universal human rights is that these rights must be consistent for all, everywhere, all the time. We urge an end to the hate and violence of the past. We call for patriotic Americans to defy those who seek to promote symbols of white supremacist hatred and slavery to degrade and intimidate others.
We urge the United States of America federal government to truly be aggressive and act to end these acts of racist terrorism against African-Americans and African-American churches. The promoters of white supremacist terrorism should not be able to making mocking threats with impunity. Our federal law enforcement needs to enforce the Civil Rights Act and end such threats against African-Americans and those who have fought for their freedoms.
Especially now, as we come on the eve of America’s independence day, defining values that we continue to seek, we call for American patriots to remember the words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
We need to continue to make the American idea and the words of our national declaration into a reality for all people, and be Responsible for Equality And Liberty.
Based on the continuing terrorist attacks on African-American houses of worship and widespread institutional support within the United States of America by some states for symbols of white supremacist violence, the volunteer human rights group Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) calls for global voices of condemnation against such racist terrorism.
We call for the world community, international human rights groups, and the United Nations to actively condemn the recent spree of terrorist attacks on African-American churches resulting in murder and repeated arson, threats, and intimidation of African-Americans. We call for the global voices and those of the United Nations to speak out against the injustice of those extremists seeking to intimidate African-Americans’ freedoms, dignity, and human rights, through the use of violence, threats, and institutional symbols of hatred, slavery, and white supremacist intimidation.
As these attacks and contempt for human rights and dignity of African-Americans must not be acceptable anywhere in the world, so this must also not be acceptable anywhere in the United States of America.
As the American people have spoken out many times for human rights of people around the world, we now call for global voices to also speak out for the human rights of African-Americans and others oppressed by extremists as well as institutional forces in the United States of America.
We call for the voices of American human rights activists, worldwide human rights activists, and the United Nations Human Rights Council to call for human rights action within the United States of America. As the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has stated, “All victims of human rights abuses should be able to look to the Human Rights Council as a forum and a springboard for action.” This must include victims within the United States of America, as well as the rest of the world.
Those individuals and leaders within the United States government, and especially the state and local governments protecting Confederate white supremacist symbols, need to understand that, in addition to the United States law to be upheld, there is international law and international standards, which we must also abide to as global citizens.
Our universal human rights and international laws do not just apply to Africa, Asia, Middle East, South and Central America, Australia, and Europe. They also apply to North America, and certainly to the United States of America, as well as any other nation.
Our universal human rights apply equally to every person in every nation of the world. The law is the law – for everyone in every nation.
We call for this support based on the United States of America as a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is the responsibility of all government agencies and individuals of the United States of America to abide by and to enforce its own laws as well as such global standards, including those rogue parts of the nation providing institutional promotion of white supremacy, in violation of national and international law. It is also the responsibility of the United Nations to use its offices to fulfill its charter in promoting and protecting human rights.
The continuing human rights violations against African-Americans in the United States of America, the failure of some members of the federal and state governments to apply the Civil Rights Act of 1968 regarding these violations, and a continuing state of intimidation against African-Americans by extremists, deserve the same attention of the world human human rights community and United Nations, as every other attack on our shared universal human rights.
We call upon the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to actively monitor this state of human rights violations in the United States of America, as part of its mission and mandate. “The mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is to work for the protection of all human rights for all people; to help empower people to realize their rights; and to assist those responsible for upholding such rights in ensuring that they are implemented.” The mandate of the OHCHR includes the priorities of “preventing human rights violations, securing respect for all human rights, promoting international cooperation to protect human rights.”
With our human rights group based in the United States, we call for U.N. assistance in the establishment of a specific international monitoring of this human rights crisis in the United States of America, and to provide global support for action to resolve this human rights crisis.
We call for such global human rights monitoring based on the associated institutional intimidation, oppression, and failure to protect houses of worship from acts of terrorism. We call upon the United Nations to monitor this human rights crisis, just as they would any other human rights crisis anywhere else in the world.
The position of Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) on our shared universal human rights is that these rights must be consistent for all, everywhere, all the time, around the world, including the United States of America. We urge the United States of America federal government to aggressively act to end these acts of white supremacist terrorism against African-Americans and African-American churches.
We make this request as a human rights volunteer activists, with a history of challenging such white supremacist extremist and terrorist behavior. We are more than an “interested party;” we have been an active campaigner for such human rights, and we have received threats from white supremacist groups as a result of our support for human rights.
We call for the world community and the United Nations to clearly state that such continued oppression of human rights and such terrorist acts are unacceptable, and will be monitored by the United Nations to make recommendations for the OHCHR to the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council.
We call for the all of the United States of America and the world community to be responsible for equality and liberty.
Founder,
Jeffrey Imm
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) supports our shared universal human rights for all people, and we reject and defy the ideology of white supremacy which has been promoted by so many hate groups and terrorists.
On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof committed a terrorist attack against the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, in Charleston, South Carolina, where he murdered 9 African-American men and women during a night time Bible study. R.E.A.L. has learned that terrorist Dylann Roof was inspired and linked to white supremacist, Nazi, and Confederate websites.
Inspired by white supremacist groups, Dylann Roof left a twisted white supremacist manifesto against African-Americans, “Jewish agitation,” and other identity groups, as a “rationale” for his terrorist attack. Terrorist Dylann Roof defended Southern slavery of human beings on Confederate plantations, demeaning African-Americans as “stupid and violent,” calling for violence against African-Americans, and claiming he was taking his “fight” to Charleston in what resulted in his terrorist attack on the Emanuel AME Church, since he stated there was “no real KKK” taking violent action. The terrorist Roof continued his racist attack on Hispanics as “enemies,” and sought to “destroy the Jewish identity.”
The terrorist Dylann Roof stated in his “manifesto” that he was educated to hate African-Americans and other minorities from his contact with the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC aka CCC), which R.E.A.L. has previously reported on. The CofCC’s racist extremist views include the twisted vision that “God is the author of racism. The national CofCC group is based in St.Louis, Missouri, not far from the Ferguson atrocities against African-Americans. (Missouri leaders allied themselves with the Confederate States of America (CSA) on October 31, 1861.) The CofCC group’s founder Gordom Baum died in March 2015. The CofCC group has been led by its president Earl Holt, who provided donations to several conservative political campaigns.
Mr. Holt has declined to address the issue of the CofCC’s influence in inspiring terrorist Dylann Roof other than being “deeply saddened,” and asked a former CofCC director to be the public spokesman on this. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reported that the CofCC president made statements about taking “a large caliber handgun”… to “help mitigate violent black crime at its source…” days before the Dylann Roof terrorist attack. The SPLC states that the CofCC “has denounced Roof’s actions but stands by their statements, maintaining they mean what they say on their website.” The CofCC stated the terrorist “Roof outlines other grievances felt by many whites,” and continued “we utterly condemn Roof’s despicable killings, but they do not detract in the slightest from the legitimacy of some of the positions he has expressed. Ignoring legitimate grievances is dangerous.”
In R.E.A.L.’s activism to defy white supremacist groups, we learned that the CofCC leaders regularly worked together with their racist allies in the Stormfront organization, including CofCC members appearing on the Stormfront radio program to promote white supremacist events and to recruit for new members to the cause of racial and religious hatred. The Stormfront organization has combined the Nazi and Confederate extremists of white supremacy into a singular “supermarket of hate,” as described by CBS News. It’s members have regularly praised and supported other terrorists committing attacks on the United States, as we havedocumented.
Dylann Roof was also linked to the Nazi website, the Daily Stormer. This information has been reported by the SPLC, who identifies Roof as poster “AryanBlood1488.” The SPLC states that: “The Daily Stormer is a neo-Nazi website run by Andrew Anglin that both generates original content and aggregates articles from other white supremacist sites across the Internet. Its comment section is much less moderated than its peer sites and hosts a diverse community of white supremacists from across the extremist spectrum. In his alleged manifesto, Roof writes, ‘I mean that our culture has been adopted by everyone in the world. This makes us feel as though our culture isnt [sic] special or unique.’ In an almost verbatim statement at the Daily Stormer on January 31, 2015, ‘AryanBlood1488’ writes, ‘White culture is World Culture, and by that I don’t mean that our culture is made up of ones from around the world, I mean that our culture has been adopted by everyone in the world. This makes us feel as if it isn’t special, because everyone has adopted it.’ Notably, on another article titled ‘No Longer Posting Council of Conservative Citizens Articles’ published to the Daily Stormer on the same day, ‘AryanBlood1488’ expresses his reverence for the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a white nationalist hate group, for ‘waking him up’ to ‘black on white crime.’ ‘I have serious, great respect for the CofCC because they are the ones who woke me up to black on white crime in the beginning,’ writes ‘AryanBlood1488.’ ‘It was the first site I went to the day that changed my life, the day I decided to type in ‘black on white crime’ into Google.’ ”
Raw Story also reported that “Roof also lived for a time in Lexington, just a few miles away, which is home to onetime Aryan Nation leader and Christian Identity pastor August Kreis – whose activity and influence has waned as a result of severe diabetes and his arrest last year on child sex abuse charges. An analysis of Roof’s writings suggests that he was an active participant in The Daily Stormer white nationalist message board.”
Dylann Roof and Nazi Daily Stormer Website (Source: SPLC)
For American Christians, the fight for equality and justice
in the United States is a deep-seated obligation
Not Just to Do Right, but a MORAL IMPERATIVE to Undo Wrongs
American Christians who don’t understand that obligation, don’t understand their national culture and their history – especially for white Christian Americans.
Especially when white Christian Americans know about the anti-human rights forces which have acted, and justified their crimes against humanity as “Christian.”
Some have let the voices of pride speak louder than the voice of humility.
Some have allowed the focus of privilege to define their lives, rather than charity.
But those who have lived through the fight to make our nation free know.
There is no burden in working for our brothers and sisters.
There is no comfort greater than our moral compass and conscience.
Finally, some of the pages are beginning to turn in the long struggle of making history.
We remember the slaveholders. We remember the racist white supremacists. We remember those with no shame and no conscience. But let us also never forget the hundreds of thousands who fought against such evil, and died fighting such crimes against humanity. Not just because they were Americans, but because it was the right thing to do.
That is the spirit of America that our nation needs to find again.
And from one of the small watchfires in the many camps for freedom and justice, I just wanted to say thank you, Julia Ward Howe
===============================
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Since God is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
While God is marching on.
More of the public continues to call for the swift end of official and institutional activities promoting the Confederate flag and symbols of hate, which have disgraced the great United States of America for too long. Patriotic Americans condemn the Confederate symbol of white supremacy racism and its promotion of human slavery, because it is an offense to our nation, to our support for shared human rights, and to the equality and dignity of African-Americans and all of our fellow Americans.
But is it more than simply offensive and degrading to African-Americans and American patriots? Patriots and public activists must examine how such official promotion of Confederate flags and symbols conflicts with the Constitution of the United States, and determine what we need to do in terms of the actions of public citizens, including citizens’ arrests, and class action lawsuits, in the event that government officials continue to fail to enforce the law. We need more than passionate views and statements; we need passionate action on behalf of this great nation.
Is the government display and honoring of the Confederate flag and Confederate symbols legal? An examination of the white supremacist Confederate cause to enslave, degrade, and intimidate African-Americans, as well as an examination of the U.S. Constitution and other federal laws clearly indicate that official and public honoring of Confederate flag and symbols is not simply disgusting, it is clearly against the law.
Many Americans have ignored this question, because of widespread misunderstanding over the true intent of the law and the criminal message of the white supremacist Confederate States of America (CSA) “culture,” as well as because of the mistaken belief that the Confederate enemy threat to this nation ended with the formal ending of the Civil War 150 years ago. As we have seen, the Confederate cause of white supremacist hatred, intimidation, and violence continues to this day.
The flag and symbols of the Confederate States of America were specifically associated with a promotion of white supremacy and the contemptible practice of human slavery. Many Americans simply view this as shameful and disgusting. But a careful examination of our Constitution and federal law shows that such institutional white supremacist intimidation is more than simply disgraceful; it is against the law – it is criminal.
To understand this, we need to dismiss with the nonsense that the Confederates were fighting some courageous war for “states’ rights,” but rather they sought to create an unyielding institution to degrade, deny human rights and dignity, kill, and abuse African-Americans based on their goals in defense of human slavery of African-Americans. This can be seen by an examination of the Confederate’s own words on their views, goals, and objectives.
In the Confederate States of America’s own Constitution, the Confederates, who declared open treasonous insurrection and rebellion on the United States government and its Constitution, created a “mirror constitution” of their own, except that in that document of shame, the Confederates openly promoted the use of human slavery. The perverted Confederate Constitution called for laws defending the “institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States” (CSA Const. Article IV, Section 3(3)), “denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves,” (CSA Const. Article IV, Section 2(1)) and calling for Confederate Congressional control over the business of “slavery” from any states outside of the CSA. (CSA Const. Article IV, Sections 9(1) and 9(2))
The Confederates did not view African-Americans as human beings, only as property. The Confederates sought to enforce this twisted view in defiance of all natural law into an institution, states, regulations, and even their own “Constitution.” So for the Confederates, the right of white supremacist’s free travel became the right to travel “with their slaves and other property.” (CSA Const. Article IV, Section 2(1))
The Confederate States of America’s individual states declarations of secession define their goals as seeking to protect their white supremacist institution of human slavery. As described in the individual secession statements, the Confederates viewed that “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery” (Mississippi), in defense of “African slavery” (Georgia), defending a white supremacist culture of “slaveholding States of the South” (South Carolina, Alabama, and Virginia), and “that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity” (Texas). The mission and values of the Confederate States were to defend only white supremacist governance, viewing “the African race…as an inferior and dependent race” (Texas), rejecting “negro equality” (South Carolina), rejecting “political equality between the white and negro races” (Texas). The Confederates viewed African-Americans “beneficial and tolerable” only as slaves who were “an inferior and dependent race” (Texas).
What government official, military individual, court, law enforcement individual, or any person representing any part of the United States of America should be legally allowed to promote the symbols and flags of such criminal and despicable positions? How could we allow anyone in a position of government of any type to “honor” and commemorate such institutionally criminal views and values? How can the government enforce its obligations under the U.S. Constitution and U.S. law, while allowing this “honoring” of Confederate flags and symbols?
The Constitution of the United States has been amended to be crystal clear that such despicable actions and institutional oppression against African-Americans were against all national law. It was changed consciously and deliberately and in full knowledge of the actions of the Confederates so that Americans could state, regarding this African-American Holocaust, “Never Again.” U.S Constitution Amendment 13 (ratified December 6, 1865) stated that slavery was not permitted in the United States. Amendment 15 (ratified February 3, 1870) stated that the “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
The Civil Rights Act of 1968 law states that it is a federal crime (18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(2)) to “by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone …by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin.”
The United States federal law makes it a CRIME for such white supremacist intimidation to interfere with lawful participation in “speech or peaceful assembly,” voting, “participating in or enjoying any benefit, service, privilege, program, facility, or activity provided or administered by the United States,” “applying for or enjoying employment,” enjoying any federal government or state benefit or service, attending college, using any public goods, services, facilities or accommodations (from foods, restaurants, gasoline, theaters, restaurants, etc.), traveling by any means, serving on a court, and many other activities.
The intent of this U.S. federal law and the amendments to the Constitution in the light of the white supremacist Confederate insurrection and rebellion was to make it clear that such racist activity was CRIMINAL, not simply deplorable. The intent is clear that the changes to law were enable CRIMINAL PROSECUTION of such white supremacists denying basic human rights, not simply to shake our heads in disgust and dismay.
So in view of these aspects of the U.S. Constitution and federal law, why would it be legal for government and government-funded institutions to display such symbols of white supremacist hate to create a “culture” of intimidation in our government offices, in public places, in colleges, in restaurants, and in other public places where federal law specifically makes it a CRIME to intimidate people from using? In fact, it is clear that the law of the land intended to criminalize such actions by government agencies and institutions intimidating African-Americans in public places.
It is against the law for our government agencies to create such a culture of intimidation against African-Americans in government offices and facilities with Confederate flags and monuments to such white supremacy. Our United States Congress should know that it cannot legally permit the South Carolina Confederate flag or any symbols of the white supremacist Confederacy in any Congressional or government buildings to create an atmosphere of intimidation to American people they represent. It is against the law for the government of South Carolina to fly this Confederate white supremacist flag on capital and public grounds.
It is against the law for the United States military and armed forces to create a culture of intimidation against African-Americans by honoring the white supremacist Confederate flag, their treasonous leaders, and military leaders, including “honoring” of such Confederate leaders in government military institutions.
It is against the law for state government agencies to have issued and still issue “Confederate license plates” to create a culture of intimidation against African-Americans and contempt for the law on our highways and public places.
It is against the law for any college, including the Citadel, to display such Confederate flags and symbols of white supremacist intimidation against African-American in violation of this law.
It is against the law for African-Americans to be intimated and forced to attend schools and educational institutions with names honoring white supremacist Confederate leaders, with intimidating white supremacist Confederate flags and statues at such educational institutions. The law clearly shows this applies to any university, school, or educational institution.
It is against the law for parks and other public places to promote this white supremacist Confederate flag and symbols to intimidate the African-American public from the use of these parks and public institutions, and to intimidate their public speech or peaceful assembly in such areas. It is against the law for our park administrations to sell, promote, and honor white supremacist Confederate flags, monuments, and other items to intimidate African-Americans from using such facilities, and to license commercial vendors to sell such white supremacist Confederate items, as well.
Regarding highways, travel, and “any facility of interstate commerce,” it is against the law for government organizations and institutions to designate names of such public facilities based on white supremacist Confederate leaders and to adorn them with Confederate white supremacist monuments to intimidate African-Americans from using such facilities of interstate commerce. The “Jefferson Davis Highway,” named after the notorious Confederate white supremacist leader, is in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and California; this includes direct avenues of interstate commerce in clear violation of federal law. Furthermore, the Federal Highway Administration maintains a friendly “history” of this disgraceful abuse of our interstate commerce, named after a white supremacist leader who led the campaign to kill 400,000 American soldiers and enslave at least hundreds of thousands of African-Americans.
In addition to all of these other laws, our U.S. Constitution has another legal obligation to enforce, specifically to all those in any government, under U.S. Constitution Amendment 14, Section 3, which states: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
We have seen numerous terrorist attacks on our nation, associated with those allied to the “insurrection” and “rebellion” by the Confederate white supremacist movement. This does not include only the Confederate terrorist attack in Charleston by Dylann Roof, but also other recent attacks by Confederate terrorist Wade Michael Page in Wisconsin, the terrorist shooting of African American churches in Tennessee by Confederate terrorists Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman, and the plot by such Confederate terrorists to kill 102 African Americans in an attack on a church, as well as an attack on then Senator Barack Obama.
The idea that the Confederate enemy threat ended with the legal end of the Civil War is a misguided and incomplete view of history. The reality is that Confederate enemies chose to use other tactics to promote their policies and views of white supremacy against Americans, including terrorist tactics of insurgent warfare. This enemy is very much still alive in this nation.
So in view of all of these facts and the law of the land, it is clearly against the U.S. Constitution and against the law for members of our government who “hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State” to give “aid or comfort to the enemies” of our nation and those enemies who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” This legal standard clearly applies to those members of our federal, state, or local government who would honor, promote, and praise such Confederate white supremacy symbols and leaders, giving “aid” and “comfort” to a very real enemy that still exists among us today.
When we start with an understanding of RIGHT AND WRONG, and we are educated on THE LAW, it is not difficult to see the many, many violations of the law by institutions seeking to create a culture of public intimidation against African-Americans in this nation.
I grew up as a child seeing the rawness of this white supremacy hatred and sickness in our nation. I vividly recall a visit to Virginia Beach, Virginia, asking my father what a sign meant that was in front of a hotel there that read “White Clientele Only.” My father went on to tell me how he learned of how his African-American co-workers would be intimidated and denied the rights to eat in public places that were also viewed as exclusive for “white clientele only.” I saw the disgrace of the white supremacy hate against Americans directly with my own eyes. I saw the contempt of Confederates for our nation, as they tore down an American flag that my father had in Virginia.
We have come far from those dark, horrible days, but we have not come far enough. We have changed much, but we have not changed enough. Most of all, we have enforced the law, but we have not enforced the law enough, and it is PAST TIME for our REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT and OUR RESPONSIBILITY to get the law of the land enforced against the Confederate white supremacist movement in this nation.
This is a call to action directly to the U.S. Department of Justice, to the U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on this epidemic of criminal behavior by those “giving aid” to Confederate white supremacists, as well as a direct call for action by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Civil Rights Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta. This is not just the responsibility of protesters and activists, this is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TOO – we are looking for your leadership to enforce the law of the land. But while we seek our Department of Justice to act, this does not reduce OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO ACT one bit – we are responsible for awakening our government, our institutions, and our businesses to ENFORCE THE LAW. If they cannot act swiftly through our calls for justice, then our calls for Class Action Lawsuits and other actions to ensure justice are required.
Today, in Charleston, South Carolina, an American patriot, Brittany “Bree” Newsome, took down the Confederate flag of white supremacy over the Charleston capitol grounds. She was arrested for the misdemeanor of defacing a monument, and a campaign of “#FreeBree” has been started. But who has broken THE LAW? Clearly, the law has been broken by the South Carolina government, and Bree Newsome’s actions were truly to ENFORCE THE LAW OF THE LAND, which is being broken by such government representatives. Bree Newsome was making a CITIZEN’S ARREST against the criminal symbol of Confederate white supremacist intimidation and hate being illegally honored on the public grounds at the Charleston capital.
After 150 years, it is truly past time for Americans to find the courage to enforce our laws.
If our representative government and our great nation is afraid and unwilling to enforce THE LAW in these blatant issues of honoring and promoting such white supremacist Confederate symbols, especially when such Confederates commit acts of terrorism on this nation, then let us not be such incredible hypocrites when we judge other nations who fail to act on extremists in their midst. Our support for the law, for our universal human rights and dignity is not simply a goal for the rest world, it is an imperative for the United States of America.
Some will want to debate this as a matter of “free speech” versus “civil rights” as if this was some philosophical matter detached from the urgent needs for safety, rights, dignity, and equality of Americans today. Some will want to argue this as a matter of “history” versus “legalities,” when the history they want to ignore is the enslavement, oppression, and mass murder of African Americans. The history they want to ignore is the hundreds of thousands of American patriots who died to fight such slavery. The history they want to ignore is the white supremacist contempt for human rights and dignity and the mutilation of our nation’s soul by the white supremacist atrocities, which we continue to see today.
But at some point, the American people must take a stand to show we understand the difference between right and wrong, that we have respect for the laws of this land and the human rights of this world, and we will not let that crimes committed by Americans in the past define us as Americans and as nation – today or in the future.
Some things are worth fighting for. In Arlington National Cemetery and in graves around this nation, 400,000 American patriot soldiers, including freed African-American slaves and many patriotic white Americans – GAVE THEIR LIVES and DIED – to defend our Union and to defy the cause of white supremacist HUMAN SLAVERY. When our children, the world, and each other see America, we must remember that.
We must remember, when faced with terrible wrongs, we can and we must have the courage to do what is RIGHT.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” It has been stated in contexts around the world, as it should. But let us not forget that it was written from by Dr King while he was in the Birmingham, Alabama jail to urge Americans to work for justice everywhere throughout this great nation. We must heed these words today, and end the criminal injustice of the Confederate white supremacist intimidation in our public places.
We need to remind the enemies of this nation. We need to remind those whose twisted values would honor white supremacy. We need to remind those who are fighting for democracy in foreign lands. We need to remind our children, who are looking for our leadership in this hour of decision. But most of all, we need to look to each other, eye to eye, hand to hand, heart to heart, in every race, religion, gender, and identity group, that makes up this great, integrated, and diverse nation of America.
We need to look to one another and remind ourselves, not just of our rights, but also of our RESPONSIBILITY… as WE ARE – the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. This isn’t someone else’s fight. This isn’t someone else’s problem. This is our RESPONSIBILITY – to defy the enemies of our nation and the enemies of our human rights. It is our responsibility to continue to work to make this nation the land of the free and the home of the brave.
It is our RESPONSIBILITY for American Equality and Liberty – for all.
