UPDATE: Added a few pics and names of those in attendance; also One Peoples Project has a report back with more pics and a video.
After last years embarrassing display, expectations were super low for the Keystone State “Skinheads” annual event in Philadelphia, the Leif Ericson Day celebration. But somehow those boneheads managed to underwhelm us.
About 20 neo-Nazis rallied for less than 10 minutes over an hour late by the statue of a guy who is NOT Leif Ericson. Well, not RIGHT by the statue, as their rally location had been occupied by around 15 Philly Anitfa. They went on to make unintelligible speeches on a megaphone about the plight of “White Europeans.” Well, they might have been more intelligible if Antifacists weren’t shouting them down with chants of “THIS IS OUR COMMUNITY – NAZIS OUT” and “DEATH, DEATH, DEATH TO THE NAZIS – POWER, POWER, POWER TO THE PEOPLE” as well as general heckling and insults. It wasn’t long before they had clearly had enough and packed up their side show and headed back to their cars under police protection.
There appeared to be primarily three groups represented at the celebration. KSS, The American Third Position Party, and The Hated Skins.
Some Nazis in attendance included:
Philly PD was on hand to protect the Nazis, as has become tradition. Some leaflets were handed out during the brief event explaining to those passing by in Fairmount Park what the affiliations and motivations of the two groups were, as KSS has increasingly attempted to whitewash their image in recent years. Many people in the park were participating or attending the Navy regata there today, but expressed their solidarity with our militant position against fascist organizing.
Events like this seem innocuous enough, but they present an opportunity for KSS to recruit and openly organize in Philadelphia, as well as aid in their attempts to distract attention from their more obviously vile endeavors, like the White Power concert they organized recently in rural PA. Opposing Fascist attempts to organize or gain footholds in our city is paramount to keeping them marginalized and ineffective.
See you next year,
Philly Anitfa