An ad hoc group of SC progressives, anti-racists, and immigrant advocacy groups will hold a silent protest against the upcoming neoNazi demonstration. Several hate groups will reportedly be protesting illegal immigration at the State House at 1pm Saturday.

To counter-protest: meet at noon this Saturday, April 21, in front of the SC Supreme Court Building (1231 Gervais Street--the corner of Gervais & Sumter Sts.).

For more information please contact Eddie Lee at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it 803-740-3212 or Melissa Moore at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it 803-256-6500.

Letter to the Editor, by Eddie Lee. (Sent to The State newspaper). This past Tuesday April 17th was Holocaust Memorial Day. This Saturday, April 21st, Nazis will be marching on our State Capital. What lessons, if any did we learn from the Holocaust? All my life I have heard said "Never Again" in respect to the Holocaust, yet still it happens over and over. In Cambodia when I was a kid, in the Balkans as I was a young adult, and now in Darfur. Still, I never envisioned seeing Nazis marching in the city I call home. If these "skinheads" get their way, we will not be able to say we did not see it coming.

Letter to the Editor, by Eddie Lee. (Sent to The State newspaper). This past Tuesday April 17th was Holocaust Memorial Day. This Saturday, April 21st, Nazis will be marching on our State Capital. What lessons, if any did we learn from the Holocaust? All my life I have heard said "Never Again" in respect to the Holocaust, yet still it happens over and over. In Cambodia when I was a kid, in the Balkans as I was a young adult, and now in Darfur. Still, I never envisioned seeing Nazis marching in the city I call home. If these "skinheads" get their way, we will not be able to say we did not see it coming.

I'm not ceding one inch to those who want to exterminate my brothers and sisters. These are not simply "skinhead punks" These are National Socialist - they are actual Nazis. They are a registered political party who will announce their Presidential Vice Presidential Candidates here on Saturday. I have asked everyone I know to be there. A few have said to me "Why give them any attention" and to "Just ignore them" Well, that was tried in Europe in the 1930's. It did not work. One lesson I should hope we would have learned from one of the a darkest eras of human experience is that silence truly is complicity.

As a citizen of Columbia, I am appalealed that our city was chosen by the National Socialist Movement for their anti-immigration march and rally to announce their Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates. I had to ask myself why these Nazis selected Columbia . Could it be that we have the confederate flag, a symbol of bigotry and intolerance, flying in a place of prominence in front of our State House? Is it in part that we are one of only four states to have no hate crime laws? Certainly, the presence of the Aryan Nation across the river in Lexington County, the Ku Klux Klan throughout our state, and the largest number of League of the South chapters of any state played a part.. From Charleston's history as the largest port profiting from the slave trade, to the horrible treatment of our black citizens during and after reconstruction, to our state's fierce refusal to abide by civil rights legislation, to today's huge economic and educational disparities between white people and people of color, South Carolina has a long and shameful history of not only tolerating racism, but of fostering it. Why did these fascist and racist choose our state? Because for so long we have allowed our state to be a haven for such hate.

So now here we are, preparing to face this grotesque display of human depravity. We will gather with watchful eyes and loud voices, in strong opposition to their agenda of hate. We will stand up to the evil that for so long South Carolina has turned a blind eye to. This Saturday, the people of South Carolina, side by side with brothers and sisters from across this nation, will say no to bigotry. On Saturday, we will take back some of the moral ground our forefathers first abandoned so long ago.