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'White Lives Matter' rallies planned for April 11
Ewan Palmer is reporting for Newsweek a number of cities nationwide are preparing for potential far-right "White Lives Matter" marches the afternoon of April 11. The rallies are being coordinated by extremists on social media and via the encrypted messaging app, Telegram. Dozens of events were planned to occur at 1 p.m. at various locations including New York, Forth Worth, and Chicago. Details of the events are minimal. Many of the dedicated channels for marches have a few subscribers and barely any discussion. No one is predicting anything as highly attended as the "Unite the Right" march in 2017, that attracted neo-Nazis, Ku Klux, Klan and far-right extremists, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Kathy Weill is reporting for the Daily Beast the event was staged to look like a grassroots coalition expressing far-right anger, but the so-called White Lives Matter movement is secretly being organized by a coalition of Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other far-right figures. Some of the planned Sunday marches were canceled, but others are expected to continue as planned. Among them are the rallies in North Carolina and North Dakota, where activists on the left have announced counter-demonstrations. It is unknown if WLM rallies are planned for anywhere upstate this weekend, where the Oath Keepers have had a strong presence. Until 2017, the town of Chatham was home to the group's state offices. Following the death of leader John Wallace, those offices moved to the town of Mount Pleasant in Westchester County.