Wednesday, January 20, 3pm
Columbus City Hall, 90 W. Broad St.

Facebook Event
Appeal for a Mass Anti-Fascist Demonstration at the Statehouse on January 20.

We will meet outside of Columbus City Hall (90 West Broad Street) to begin the rally, and march together to the Statehouse!

As Inauguration Day marks the transition from the Presidency of Donald Trump to that of Joe Biden, we recognize that it represents no fundamental change in the white supremacist oligarchy that governs this country, no relief for working class people suffering under a deadly pandemic, and no solution against the rising tide of fascism.

The events of the past weeks have proven allowing the far right to demonstrate unopposed to be a failed strategy. Rather than recede into the shadows in the wake of Donald Trump's defeat on election day, the white mob have only been emboldened. Furthermore, entrusting our safety to their enablers within law enforcement will only be more dangerous, which is why we reject solutions that expand the police state, including any new domestic terrorism legislation which will certainly to be used disproportionately to harm people of color and other marginalized communities.

While fascist street mobs are far from being able to carry out a successful coup, allowing them to continue to flex their muscles and consolidate their forces means more vigilante violence against marginalized people. The January 6 rally in Los Angeles nearly turned into a lynch mob, attacking a Black woman who was in the area. In Columbus, too, the fascist mob attacked DeJuan Sharp near the statehouse.

We can prevent further violence by the far right, but we need to counter it with organized mass resistance. While liberal and moderate politicians call on us to stay home and trust our safety to the armed defenders of the state, we reject this which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dubbed to be “more devoted to order than justice (...) a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” Rather, we recognize that our true strength is in our numbers, and our ability to overwhelm, disrupt, and dis-organize the right.

We believe in the example set by anti-fascists in Charlottesville, who bravely countered a mass demonstration of White Nationalists, and who exposed and de-mobilized racists who looked to unite a base of militant white supremacy. We look to the success of the mobilizations of May 2019 against the KKK here in Ohio, where thousands of anti-fascists outnumbered the right. And we remember how in all demonstrations by the far right in recent years, the police have repeatedly shown themselves to be on the side of white power, and against multi-racial resistance.

No more dress rehearsals for the right! No confidence in cops or the capitalist parties! All out against fascism!