BUFFALO, N.Y.
Protest drives Nazis off campus
Some 200 youths, students, teachers and
Buffalo, N.Y., residents held a rally and drove an
ultra-right-wing racist and anti-Semitic group off the
University of Buffalo's South Campus on Sept. 27. Black, Asian,
Latino and white people from all spectrums of life, religion,
sexual orientation and gender came out to the rally called by
the Buffalo International Action Center. They outnumbered the
racists 40 to one.
The racists called themselves the "Racial Nationalist Party
of America." Using Nazi-like terminology, their vicious
official rally slogan was opposition to "Jew Communism in our
schools."
An active police presence protected the Nazi group. Police
turned their backs toward the bigots and faced the anti-Nazi
protesters.
It is no coincidence that these fascists showed up to
promote division at a time when the Arab communities in Buffalo
face a government witch hunt and frenzy of anti-Arab
propaganda, and when the Black community is under intensified
police harassment.
Erie County Executive Joel Giambra had told progressive
people to stay home to avoid possible violence. At the rally,
the Rev. Darius Pridgen said: "The county executive said we
should ignore the Nazis and stay away. We have ignored too much
for too long. We came to do the right thing." Pridgen is an
African American activist who had earlier led a successful
struggle here against racist profiling at a large regional
mall.
In the end all five members of the Racial Nationalist Party
of America were seen fleeing from the demonstration. Activists
and community members had once again booted the bigots out of
Buffalo.
--Matthew L. Schwartz
Reprinted from the Oct. 9, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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