------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 19, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
FASCISTS MENACE LGBT PRIDE WEEKEND: BUFFALO ACTIVISTS DROWN THEM OUT
By Beverly Hiestand Buffalo, N.Y.
Progressive activists organized by the Buffalo International Action Center and members of Radikats from the State University of New York at Buffalo prematurely closed down a white-supremacist rally here in downtown Niagara Square on June 7.
The "Racial Nationalist Party of Amer ica," headquartered in nearby Lock port, held a rally in downtown Buffalo in front of City Hall at the same time the annual lesbian, gay, bi and trans pride march was taking place elsewhere in the downtown area.
The day before, right-wing bigots had held up huge anti-gay signs along the route of the annual Dyke March. They did it again at the pride march the next day.
The white supremacists had stated that their June 7 rally would be two hours long. They hoped to capture media attention.
But during the small ultra-right rally, Nazi leader and spokesperson Karl Hand had to complain about the shouting, taunt ing, dancing and drumming by progressive activists, which totally drowned out his attempts to be heard over a megaphone.
Drivers passing by in cars tooted their horns in support of an IAC banner reading: "No hate mongers here or in the White House."
After only 45 minutes, Hand and four supporters who had stood next to him holding flags with swastikas gave up and left. Only two people had showed up to listen.
The anti-fascist demonstrators who organized the protest on only a few days' notice felt it was very important to not allow the racist, anti- LGBT and anti-Semitic filth to go unchallenged for even one moment.
Some 22 years ago, the same Karl Hand and his fascist band attempted to hold a rally in the same location, City Hall, on Jan. 15, Martin Luther King's birthday. They announced their plans after a series of racist murders of Black men had shocked the city.
In an exemplary show of strength, anti-racist forces organized more than 3,000 protesters to march down Delaware Ave nue in sub-zero weather to rally in front of City Hall, where Hand and four others huddled on the steps--completely surrounded and protected by Buffalo police.
Tom Scahill, one of this year's counter-protesters, also took part in the 1981 anti-fascist mobilization.
He noted: "Hand and his followers felt emboldened by the white supremacist murders in 1981 and saw it as an opportunity to organize racist elements. How ever, after they saw the anti-racist commu nity response, they went back into hiding.
"Today they feel emboldened by the Bush administration's racist attacks on civil rights--especially those of Arab, Muslim and South Asian people. There are growing reports of distribution of Klan and Nazi literature and exhibition of racist objects being displayed on people's lawns--including Confederate flags--in the upstate New York area.
"We have learned that the only way to stop these fascists is to come out each and every time to push them back," Scahill concluded.
He stressed that the anti-racist, pro-LGBT and anti-sexist forces in Buffalo are strong. Over the last decade, progressive activists in this city have successfully blocked three national right-wing mobilizations that tried to close women's health clinics that provide abortion and attack LGBT meeting spaces.
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