It looked like a scene out of the 1950s on Sunday, as white supremacists held an armed protest outside the National Association for the Advancement of Color People (NAACP) headquarters in Houston. Protestors waved Confederate flags, held a banner that read “White Lives Matter,” and carried signs referencing the neo-Nazi slogan “14 Words” (the 14 words being, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children”).
NAACP President and CEO Cornell Brooks responded to the protest with a series of steadfast tweets, saying the civil rights organization was not intimidated.
1) #WhiteLivesMatter activists protest outside Houston @NAACP HQ w' guns on a sabbath. We are not intimidated. pic.twitter.com/fQjYXz9w4T
— Rev. & Prof. Cornell William Brooks (@CornellWBrooks) August 21, 2016
2) Guns & confederate flags won't protect black, white, any or all lives. They certainly won't intimidate the @NAACP pic.twitter.com/ndJanBIJas
— Rev. & Prof. Cornell William Brooks (@CornellWBrooks) August 21, 2016
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt also weighed in, declaring the rally “wrong” and disturbing.
Deeply disturbed by protests outside @NAACP offices in #Houston. Its wrong on all counts. https://t.co/P8VYj818I8 cc @CornellWBrooks
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) August 22, 2016
At the rally, which was surrounded by about a dozen police officers on horseback, white supremacist Scott Lacy told local news station KPRC: “We came here because the NAACP headquarters is here and that’s one of the most racist groups in America.”
A video shot by KPRC shows the armed protest taking place on the front lawn of the NAACP building located in the city’s historically black Third Ward. A racially diverse group of counter-protestors wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts arrived soon after the rally began.
One of the protestors on the white supremacist side, Billy Gaston, told KPRC he was there because “it seems like, in the country today, it’s always wrong to be white.”
“It’s a physical manifestation of white supremacy, white privilege, and racism being protected by this country,” an unnamed woman told KPRC as she gazed at the scene of police protecting white supremacist protestors.
H/T KPRC Houston