Farmington Valley Rallies Against Hate

Residents in the Farmington Valley towns of Avon and Granby are organizing to reject a recent rise in hate groups there.

When the extremist right-wing group Moms for Liberty announced a symposium on parental rights in Avon, the community quickly came together against “hatred, book banning and bigotry.”

Moms for Liberty is crusading nationally for book bans and has targeted Avon's public schools. Their event flier said speaker James Lindsay, is "a leading expert on Critical Race Theory, and mathematician who is anti-communist and pro-America."

Gathering outside the Avon Senior Center on October 21, local residents, elected officials, and many organizations including the NAACP and the Coalition on Diversity and Equity (CODE) stood together to say no to hate.

One participant age 92 said this was the second time he demonstrated against book banning, recalling his experience in fascist Germany in 1943.

State Rep Eleni Kavros DeGraw encouraged turnout for the peaceful protest saying, “Moms for Liberty seeks to undermine public schools, teachers and communities. Their brand of hate has no place here.”

The Avon Democrats said they “strongly denounce any organization that serves to demonize, dehumanize, and erase entire groups of people. We denounce efforts to remove books from libraries, topics from curricula, events and individuals from history lessons, and diverse voices from conversations.”

In nearby Granby, a rally to “Stop the Hate” has been called for Saturday October 28 at noon on the Town Green in response to white supremacist literature dropped in driveways around town last week.

Granby Racial Reconciliation is giving out “Hate has no place in our town” yard signs saying their organization “condemns the hate filled ideology of the Nationalist Social Club, and calls all people, and especially their recruitment target: white men, to stand against their message and stand for the acceptance of all people.”

Granby Racial Reconciliation formed in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. They said, “the Nationalist Social Club promotes itself as "a pro-white, street-oriented fraternity dedicated to raising authentic resistance to the enemies of our people in the New England area,” and that

the ideology of this group is based on a conspiracy theory called “The Great Replacement,” and at its core is white supremacist, xenophobic and anti-immigrant.”