| March 7th, 2018

Conflict at the Capital

By: journeymagazine

By| Christina Hunter

With signs raised and shouts filling the air, tensions were at an all-time high at the Capitol building in Tallahassee, Florida.

The anti-rally, which was led by FSU students, was orchestrated to counter the League of the South’s march to the capitol.

Richard Garzola, the creator of the Anti-Rally, expressed why he pushed to create this counter-protest,

“The purpose for me and everyone else being out here is to fight against white supremacy and everything white supremacy stands for because white people are not superior to us; no one is superior to anyone. I grew up believing that no one is superior to me and I’m not superior to anyone else.”

The League of the South or LOS is a white nationalist, Neo-Confederate, and white supremacist organization based in Killen, Alabama.

The group, which was escorted by police, showed up with about 30 members all of whom wanted to march to let the nation known what they stood for.

Their leader Michael Hill stated, “We’re here because we want people to know we exist and we want to show our flag and we want to get our message out which is the survival, well-being, and independence of the southern people. We’ve been around for twenty-five years so it’s not like we just came out here.”

According to Southern Poverty Law Center, Hill was a professor at a historically black college for many years before launching LOS.

On the opposing side of LOS, students and locals stood chanting, “black lives matter” and “get this through your head, the Confederacy is dead.”

In the crowd Lisa Moore, an FSU student spoke about why she felt the protest was needed.

“As someone who lives in Tallahassee its really alarming to me that, that kind of thing is here, and I just feel it’s really wrong,” Moore said. “I wanted to be here to make sure they understand that we’re not going to stand for it and it’s inappropriate and it’s wrong and it’s immoral.”

In anticipation of what was to come three branches of law enforcement were present in the capital.