“The reason why we’re not choosing to ignore them any more is because for the past couple of years, we had,” said PJ of Valdosta Antifa, who asked to not use his last name.

Activists from various anti-fascist groups are likely to mount a counter protest when a neo-Nazi organization holds a rally in Newnan on April 21.



Valdosta Antifa has put out the word about the rally. On social media, several Cowetans have questioned why an out-of-town organization would be coming to Coweta to protest, wondering if it wouldn’t it be better to just ignore the rally and not give the white supremacists the attention they crave.

Related Stories 10 things to know about the upcoming white-supremacist rally The Newnan Times-Herald has compiled a list of ongoing questions many residents have asked about the event so far. Pastors working to have alternative on April 21 Local ministers are creating an alternative event to the planned National Socialist Movement rally. City braces for proposed white-nationalist rally The city of Newnan is preparing for an upcoming white-nationalist rally – an event officials are hoping will be resolved without any violence.

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“The reason why we’re not choosing to ignore them any more is because for the past couple of years, we had,” said PJ of Valdosta Antifa, who asked to not use his last name.

The Nationalist Socialist Movement is frequently in Drake Town near Temple, Ga., at a white supremacist bar and “they are building up recruitment in that whole area,” PJ said. There is a fairly new Aryan Nation group that has formed in Villa Rica, he said.

Disrupting recruitment is a big part of what Antifa tries to do, according to PJ.

The activists' main activity at the rally will be photographing participants, he said. Rally participants often don’t want their employers to know they are participating with neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations, he said, so Antifa members take photos, work to identify participants and send the information to employers.

The second goal is to be loud enough to disrupt the videos that members of NSM will be making, so they can’t use them for recruitment, PJ said.

“The focus is strictly on the NSM,” he said. Antifa wants to show them that they are “not wanted here or wanted anywhere.

“We don’t want them to feel like they can feel comfortable and be safe," PJ said.

But he wants to put everyone else at ease.

“We have no intention of destroying anything. I try to curb that,” he said. "We’re not there for violence. We’re there to try to expose Nazis."

On an event page created for the counter protest, the group writes “we want the community to take the lead on this, not us… We hope this is a peaceful ordeal and it can be forgotten about but we also refuse to let Nazis march unopposed… show that Newnan doesn’t accept this.”

It also states “we don’t need violent confrontation in Newnan but we WILL defend ourselves."

PJ said that he joined NSM in 2012 to investigate what the organization was like. At the time, he was with the “hacktivist” group Anonymous. “They were targeting white power groups online. I said – let’s take it a step further and join,” he said.

“I’ve seen it first hand. I know what they say in public, and I know what they really do in private – it is absolutely terrifying,” PJ added. “They will say they are ‘white civil rights activists.’ But behind closed doors they are very racist,” he said, and talk about “buying as many guns as they can and that racial holy war is coming. It’s psychotic.”

Each Antifa group is independent and autonomous, and PJ said he doesn’t know how many activists will come.

There is one organization, Great Lakes Antifa, that most other Antifa groups, as well as other anti-fascist and anti-racist groups, have disavowed because of their tactics.

“They like to start up the drama and start up the violence for media attention,” he said.

There are Great Lakes Antifa groups in Nashville, Tenn., and in Florida, and PJ said the Nashville group may attend the Newnan rally.