Monday night, protesters tore down the “Silent Sam” Confederate monument at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, which the Winston-Salem Journal called a “focus of protests and vandalism for decades” that UNC has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars per year protecting. Now far-right militia groups, white nationalists and neo-Confederates are calling for counter-action.
In a Facebook Live video streamed on Monday night, Jamie Wilson, who heads the Appalachian Oath Keepers, revealed that his group will be traveling to Chapel Hill on Saturday and said, “we’re going to need numbers, there’s no doubt about it,” because he fears that if left-leaning groups find out about their presence, counter-protesters will certainly show up to oppose them. The Oath Keepers are an extreme anti-government militia group recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an antigovernment group.
Wilson was vague on specifics, saying, “We don’t have a plan or anything. I’ll tell you right now, I was not planning on going to Chapel Hill this weekend. I was not planning that. It is what it is.”
The neo-Confederate group League of the South announced its intention to mobilize next month in Tennessee. A statement published on the organization’s website warned that the destruction of the statue was indicative of a “New Red Terror” in the United States in which "any White man or woman who dares speak or act in the interests of their race and the civilization it created will be on the Cultural Marxist list for destruction.” From the League of the South’s website (emphasis original):
We condemn in the harshest manner possible those who tore down Silent Sam, those who abetted them, and those officials who stood by on the scene and did nothing to prevent it. You are all thugs and cowards.
There is a New Red Terror being unleashed a century after the original article was introduced in Russia by the Bolshevik Revolution, which is the ideological and political inspiration for the current day Communist thugs who commit more and more violence in America’s streets. They will not stop until everything that reminds them of our Western Christian heritage, including our Southern heritage, is torn down and destroyed. And make no mistake about it, their ultimate target is flesh and blood. Ours. Any White man or woman who dares speak or act in the interests of their race and the civilization it created will be on the Cultural Marxist list for destruction. If you think this is hyperbole, stop and consider that these are the heirs of those who killed over 100 million people in the 20th century. What makes you think, Mr. and Mrs. Christian Southerner, that this leopard has changed its spots?
We call on all decent and right-thinking Southerners and others of goodwill to join us in a public demonstration on Saturday, 29 September, in Johnson City, Tennessee, to oppose this Marxist campaign of destruction. Details will be posted here on this website as soon as we have them. We encourage you to dress well, bring a Confederate flag or Tennessee State flag, and join us to let your dissenting voice be heard.
Kevin James, the media director of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement (NSM) group, posted to Gab, encouraging NSM and League of the South members and supporters to attend a “special meeting” this weekend in Bowling Green, Kentucky. We inquired about further details via the email address attached to James’ post and will update this article if we receive a response.
Update: I received this message in response to our inquiry about NSM's "special meeting" this weekend: "Sir, I have nothing to say to you."
