The BLM Mystery: Where Did the Money Go?

In early April 2021, Ziploc bags filled with rocks and Ku Klux Klan flyers were thrown on lawns and dropped on street corners around Huntington Beach, California.

- By Sean Campbell

“White civil rights!” one flyer read. “Our Ancestors settled the land, established the country, made the laws—we’re the majority, why shouldn’t we control our destiny???” Word began to circulate on social media that there would be a “White Lives Matter” rally in front of the Huntington Beach Pier on April 11 at 1 p.m.

Southern California’s Orange County has a century-long history of white supremacism. Klansmen patrolled Anaheim in white hoods and robes during the 1920s; in 1993, a Los Angeles Times headline asked if Huntington Beach was the “skinhead capital of the country.” Today, fewer than 2 percent of its residents identify as Black. But Tory Johnson didn’t care. He started Black Lives Matter Huntington Beach after the murder of George Floyd. He and his fellow protesters were tear-gassed and shot with rubber bullets. He went to jail for marching then, and he wasn’t going to let a racist rally occur in his city unchecked.

Johnson, who moved to Huntington Beach at 26 and worked temporary gigs as a security guard, began mobilizing a counterprotest to the “White Lives Matter” event. He blasted out a press release: “White supremacy is not welcome here and we will do everything possible to prevent this rally and defend our community from racist terrorism.”