We are calling for anti-racists from throughout the South to travel and oppose white power leader Richard Spencer, who will speak at the University of Florida in Gainesville on October 19. Our aim is a broad mobilization in solidarity with UF students and Gainesville residents, against white nationalist organizing.
Organizations should make travel plans for Gainesville right now. Spencer’s racist event has been officially confirmed. Details of the anti-racist counter-mobilization at UF will be announced soon. In the meantime, please spread this call to action far and wide. Commit to organizing numbers from your region to stand against the racist far-Right.
Richard Spencer is a key white nationalist leader and is one of the most prominent faces of the “Alt-Right.” While Richard Spencer portrays himself as fighting a battle of ideas for his “identitarian” cause — which Spencer denies is racist even as he organizes with neo-Nazis — the fact is that Spencer’s ideology requires organized violence for its goal of a whites-only state. Where Spencer goes, violence follows. When Spencer talked at Auburn University in Alabama on April 18, his neo-Nazi followers charged at students and anti-racists (the crowd stayed united and repelled the attack). On August 11-12, Spencer was one of the main leaders at the notorious “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. There on the night of Friday August 11, a mob of hundreds of white nationalists attacked students and counter-protesters, beating their opponents with tiki torches. Spencer called the white supremacist mobilization “absolutely amazing,” a “total victory,” and “politics at its most spectacular […] magical.” The white power attack led to one person suffering a stroke due to his injuries.
On the Saturday of the Spencer-endorsed “Unite the Right,” neo-Nazi James Alex Fields Jr. — pictured standing alongside members of the fascist Vanguard America organization earlier that day — rammed his car into anti-racist protesters, murdering Heather Heyer and injuring dozens more. Spencer disavowed Heyer’s murder to save face, yet his political agenda entailing mass violence and ethnic cleansing is clear. Until recently, Spencer was set to co-headline a far-Right rally with Vanguard America — the organization murderer Fields stood with — in North Carolina this December. (Spencer canceled for reasons that had nothing to do with Vanguard America’s politics.)
The Alt-Right has been linked to several other murders this year, such as in Maryland, New York and Oregon. Where the racist far-Right can grow unchallenged, more deaths will occur. We support community self-defense against movements that target immigrants, people of color, Jewish people, LGBTQ communities and leftists.
We urge a broad mobilization determined to stand together and to keep each other safe as we counter the militant white nationalists in Gainesville. We intend to win.
Call to Action endorsed by:
- University of Florida Young Democratic Socialists of America (FL)
- Tampa Food Not Bombs (FL)
- Tampa Democratic Socialists of America (FL)
- Street Groomers (GA)
- St. Pete Food Not Bombs (FL)
- Revolutionary Road Radio Show (FL)
- Revolutionary Caucus (FL)
- Refuge Ministries (FL)
- Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (FL)
- Orlando Antifascists (FL)
- Northeast Georgia Democratic Socialists of America (GA)
- Mutual Aid Disaster Relief – Tampa chapter (FL)
- Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America (GA)
- Love Has No Borders (FL)
- Industrial Workers of the World General Defense Committee
- Gainesville Dream Defenders (FL)
- Gainesville Antifascist Committee (FL)
- Free States of Cobb and West Atlanta (GA)
- Charleston Democratic Socialists of America (SC)
- Black Lives Matter Tampa (FL)
- Atlanta Resistance Medics (GA)
- Atlanta General Defense Committee of the Industrial Workers of the World (GA)
- Atlanta Antifascists (GA)
- Anti-Racist Action Tallahassee (FL)
- Anti-Fascist News
- All Out Atlanta (GA)
Please get in touch if your organization is mobilizing for Gainesville and wants to endorse this call to action: [email protected]
