Two stickers were also posted in Harvard Square along Massachusetts Avenue.

A Cambridge public works employee could be seen removing the stickers with a putty knife. He said he had scraped off about 20.

Stickers saying “It’s okay to be white” were posted on Wednesday morning on light poles and electrical boxes around Cambridge Common and Harvard Square, echoing several such displays that have popped up across the country and in Canada.

Signs declaring “It’s okay to be white” were also found in several locations far beyond Cambridge, including taped on the door of the Native Studies building at the University of Alberta, in Canada, on Tuesday, and around the campus of Tulane University in New Orleans on Wednesday.


The stickers were also reported in Rock River, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb, on Wednesday.

The signs were apparently promoted on 4chan, an anonymous online message board notorious for trafficking in far-right themes and Internet hoaxes. A message thread on the forum appears to encourage such a campaign, predicting the stickers would have “media & lefties frothing at the mouth.”

Cambridge police received a tip from a resident about “a number of stickers” in the Common, and officers were sent to investigate, Cambridge police spokesman Jeremy Warnick said in an e-mail to the Globe.

The tipster did not provide the context or details of the stickers, but officers are looking into the incident, Warnick said.

Police notified the Department of Public Works and requested they remove the stickers in the Common, including the ones in Harvard Square, he said.

Messages left with the mayor’s office and the Department of Public Works were not immediately returned.

Carrie Blazina can be reached at carrie.blazina@globe.com. Alyssa Meyers can be reached at alyssa.meyers@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @ameyers_.