 This is Extreme Speech, an EKB News Special Report. Good afternoon and welcome to this EKB News Special Report. I'm Gary Slott. And I'm Jill Fraley-Dotson. It has been a day circled on the calendar for the past two months and one that has been viewed with dread and increasing concern. White supremacists with the traditionalist worker party, National Socialist Movement and the Nationalist Front chose to hold a rally in downtown Pikeville today which has brought Antifa and ARA counter demonstrators out to confront them. Both sides say they are not here to cause trouble, but they also say they are not afraid to respond with force if provoked. All of the action was scheduled to begin at the top of the hour to get a live look at what is going on. Let's go now to downtown Pikeville where EKB News reporter Shannon Deskins is standing by. Shannon. Hey Jill, we are live downtown. Actually, I'm in the middle of Main Street between two groups that are obviously not going to get along today. Of course, this is the rally that has been anticipated for weeks, maybe even months now that's coming into Pikeville. At 2 o'clock was the scheduled rally for the traditionalist workers party. Now, they are over here to my right, your left. Now, there's only a few here and it's a supporting group, the TWP, the traditionalist worker party. They have not made their entrance yet. That is kind of what we're waiting for. It was supposed to be 2 o'clock. Now, on the other side of the street, if you can follow me over, now we've got the Antifa group and then other groups that are just vehemently against everything that is happening here today with the traditionalist workers party. We have heard everything from chanting to yelling. This group of behind me, they are using megaphone to get their point across. There have been a few tense moments where we have actually had some contact and some dialogue that was not nice going across the street between the two groups. So, there is so much tension down here right now that it is hard to describe. Of course, they're screaming anti-Nazi chance behind me now. There's a lot of people with signs and I don't know if Ronnie can pan in and show some of those. The one thing that is evident between the two sides of the road is a very clear line of law enforcement officers. What do we have here? We have Hyde County Sheriff's Department, Hydefield Police Department, Kentucky State Police, we even have in the green the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife here as well. Now, there are several people here with Homeland Security and as Donovan Blightburn told us earlier before the top of the hour, he said this has been a collaboration of law enforcement agencies from all across the region, the state, and even some, like we said, Homeland Security is involved here today. So, they are taking this very seriously. Now Ronnie, if you can pan to my left, your right, a lot of attention is being pointed on this side of the street. And I'm not sure which group this is that is coming in, but it is getting the attention of a lot of law enforcement. I'm not sure which side of the street they intend to go to, but we'll stay live while this happens. Everything has become eerily quiet downtown. I'm assuming this is the arrival of the traditionalist workers party. So, everything else becomes where there's a very tense moment right here. As it seems like these two groups are about to come to a confrontation. Of course, law enforcement has put themselves in between, the law enforcement has put themselves in between these two groups. Now, they have a designated area right behind where I'm standing that they need to get to, and I think law enforcement is working now, to try to usher them into that area. So, they have come in from an area that was not expected. The other groups that were going to assemble in front of the courthouse they arrived from down in the river field. And this group has come up the main street, so that is not what was expected. The will will stay live as long as this tense moment. We'll try to stay live until this group becomes set in where they are going to be for this rally. We're trying to move to a closer vantage point. So, you can see the ones who are actively against this group are all the way up to the edge of their barricaded area. It looks like they may be addressing the group. So, let me see if we can't get a microphone in here. So, hold on just a second. Let me see if we can. We've got some guys out here. All right. We are still here. What brought us here is, you know, what brought us here mainly today is, we've been seeing a lot of violence, a lot of polarization in America. What we're here to support people's first amendment rights, that's what we do. We're constitutionally oriented people, mainly veterans, like I said. And even though we don't agree with, you know, all of what both of these groups are going to be against, we're here to support the fact that they're here to, you know, voice their opinions, but to make sure it's going to be done in a civil manner. That's it, pure and simple. I would be reconciled. Now, we've got here a little bit, like, you explain what we're live right now. Okay. Sure. You guys are. We're here to support lives. Actually, we're not just one group. We're, you know, separate of people, mainly veterans. You know, we've got VFW here. We have some other keepers here. We have some three percenters here. We have some regular militia groups here. We're just basically, you can group us as this. We all took an oath. We adhered to that oath strictly. We're here to support freedom of assembly and protest and all that sort of thing. We don't support any of the views of both of the groups, but we're here to make sure that this stuff doesn't get violent. We've seen a lot of burnings. We've seen a lot of injuries. And we're just not having that in our town. We're not having that. Not in this part of the country. You know, you're just going to stand by and just come out. Sure, sure. We're here to support the law enforcement if they'd like. We're here to support these people out here, screaming stuff that we don't pretty much agree on. But we're just making sure that everything stays nice and civil. Are you the spokesperson for this collection? No, I'm not. Sure, but I'm just a loudmouth. What's your name? Yes, sir. I'm Alan Lordeery. Last name's L-A-R-D-I-E-R-I. Do you have anything else? Oh, L-A-R-D. L-A-R-D. Yes. I-E. I-E. R-I. R-I. All right, so as you can see, if the group that was not expected, I don't think here today, they say they are supporting law enforcement and they are supporting the freedom of speech. So they're not necessarily in favor of one group or the other. But they have made a big wave when they came up Main Street. So that has kind of taken us away from the center of where everything is happening. So I don't know how long that will stay live here. We're still waiting on the arrival of the main part of the traditionalist workers party. They were supposed to start at 2 o'clock. So I think everybody is really anxiously awaiting their arrival at this point. So Ronnie, if we can sort of wander back up the street for just a moment, we'll see if we can't catch that arrival. If not, if it looks like there's still going to be a few minutes, we'll kick it back to the studio and then you can bring it back live to us when they do arrive, because we do want to catch that moment. Also, no Jill and Gary, we actually have a live video going on Facebook as well right now. So we are trying to cover this as well as we can from downtown. But everything seems to die down right now. So it looks like I can get back in here. Ronnie, I think we're going to send it back to the studio at this point, back to Jill and Gary, because everything is kind of died down. Right now I said the tension is just at a maximum in downtown Pineville right now. But we will let you know and we'll come back live once again when the traditional workers' party arrives on the other side of the street. So Jill and Gary, back to you. Okay, thank you very much, Shannon, and stay safe. Of course, all of this began after a white supremacist group calling itself the traditional worker party announced its plans to hold a rally in downtown Pineville, along with the National Socialist Movement and the National Front. But who are these people behind these groups? They're not exactly shy about telling anyone they can and in that spirit they invited the media to attend their gathering in Letcher County last night. EKB News reporter Chris Anderson was there and has this report. Looking in from afar it could easily be mistaken for a family reunion, but it wasn't. In Letcher County Friday evening the National Socialist Movement and the traditionalist worker party, both white supremacist groups, gathered for a banquet, a prelude to Saturday's planned rally in Pineville. It was a friendly, low-key gathering early on with dinner and fellowship. EKB News, along with a handful of national and international media, was invited to Friday's gathering under several conditions, including not divulging the exact location of the event. The event saw a large turnout and those present by a large margin out-of-state visitors from all over the country and Canada were not shy about their beliefs. People have been taught their whole lives that to be white is to be this evil oppressive figure. This is what's called cultural Marxism. It's basically an attack on western civilization via pop culture and media and the established sources on those kinds of things. We believe nationalism as a concept works for every group of people. We are not a hate group in any way. It's just that we have a sense of identity with our own race, which all people have the right to have. I would advocate for any other racial group and I would be allies with any other racial group that insisted on having a nationalist world view over the globalism and the forced multiculturalism that we live with today. You know, I'd prefer if going down the road, demographic road we're going down, we're going to be a minority someday. So it's better sooner rather than later that we start advocating for our own interests. From the inside looking out, it was hard to escape the message of the TWP and the National Socialist Movement. Some ask not to be photographed, but no one hid from the group's beliefs. We don't hate ourselves, you know, we want to have rights just like everyone else to advocate for our own interests. Any other group can advocate for their people. Like if this was a black pride event, none of those people would have any problem. They would have no problem whatsoever just being out here raising money for the people. If this was a Black Lives Matter rally in Detroit and they were trying to help the poor there, the media would definitely have a different approach to it. One man from North Dakota said he hopes to take notes about community organizing from the events Friday and Saturday. I came down to support NSM because it seems like they're the only people telling the truth about a lot of the issues that are out there. And I figured this is a good way to learn community organizing skills that I can bring back to North Dakota. And as the rally loomed over Pikeville, all, including those at Friday's event, hoped for the best. From Letcher County, Chris Anderson, EKB News. We are joined in the studio now by Dr. Tom Ajasek, certainly a friend of EKB News, who was here today, Tom, to give us some insight about the events going on here in Pikeville today. Certainly, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. I enjoy being here every time you invite me. We have heard a lot mentioned today. Many different groups. Traditionalist Workers Party, ANTIFA or ANTIFA, whichever they prefer to be called, ARA Nationalist Front. I guess my first question is, who are all of these groups well, to give you an answer to that, I'm going to take the side that is being referred to as the fascist groups first. And the reason there are so many of them is because of lawsuits. So way back in the 40s, the Ku Klux Klan was a national organization, was basically broken up because of lawsuits. And they splinter then. And then if one group is sued, they just kind of die out in the case of the traditional worker party. That's kind of the brainchild of Matthew Heimbach, who's a very young man. And it really began on a college campus, Towson University in Maryland. And he started advocating not for white supremacy, but for white nationalism. It's a little bit different. You've heard a reference to that from some of these other groups, but they're really echoing what Heimbach kind of championed. They're saying that whites are superior to blacks or any other race. He simply says they're culturally different and each culture should be able to advocate for itself. Now some of those earlier groups, like the National Socialist Movement, those are your run-of-the-mill Nazis. They've been around for a long time. But they've kind of all been brought together under a big umbrella called the Aryan Nationalist Alliance. And that's why these other groups are coming in to support the traditionalist spectrum. Back in the 1990s, there were a lot of clashes in Britain between neo-fascist groups and some of the minority groups which were beginning to kind of become a little more assertive in Britain. And I think the anti-fascist movement here really takes its cue from the anti-fascist movement that began in Britain in the 1990s. So the anti-racist movement is really a local variation of the anti-fascist movement and they cooperate together. And the anti-racist movement tends to be active in the Midwest. They're out of, I believe, Minneapolis. But the anti-fascist movement's been around since the late 80s. You'll see them work nationwide. I think recently they had a confrontation with the traditionalist worker party in Sacramento. They've had some confrontations in Columbus, Ohio. So actually these groups know each other very, very well. Certainly it would appear that they do as we were coming on the air today before many of the people arrived downtown. We heard a lot of heated exchanges between the very small group of the traditionalist worker party that were already there and the anti-field that was right across the street. So much tension between all of the groups represented today. Absolutely. And for many of these groups this has become something of a religion. I think that with regard to the anti-fascist movement they really feel that they're standing up for diversity in America. They're standing up for people who don't have a voice. On the other side of the spectrum the traditionalist worker party feel that white Americans have been treated badly and so that they're on the defense of a lot. So they are also saying hey we're just defending ourselves. It's kind of interesting both sides say we're the side that's being picked on and we're defending the underdog. Seems to be always how it goes though, right? Yeah, absolutely. Now on occasion there has been violence I think that Pikeville really prepared for this very, very well. And you can see a large number of law enforcement people. Local veterans who've come out to kind of stand between the two groups to try to ensure that Pikeville will stay safe and that our infrastructure will be safe. And I think that's a really positive thing. And I hope this will all work out. Absolutely. We all do. We all do. Well, just a moment ago we got a glimpse of the people who are on the nationalist side of today's demonstrations. We now have a short interview with one of the people who came out to protest today. Let's have a look. Well, basically I'm here because I want to send a message just like I always do with my fellow Antifa to groups like the NSM and the traditional worker party which are basically calling themselves the Nationalist Front today. We're basically sending a message that they're only going to go by so far. And this is pretty much as good as it gets because we're a better society than this. And to be perfectly confident in Pikeville for about 12 hours and I know that Pikeville is a lot better than what they have to offer. That's one of the reasons why they wouldn't let them hold their event at Jenny Wilde. It wasn't fair to the people who had made that part what it is. And long before, long after this crowd is gone, long after we're gone, y'all are going to still be here having to deal with what just happened. But y'all will move on. Y'all will move on and it's not that strong. And you will be fine. I mean, I really am captivated by what I see here in town. I haven't been here long enough to see what else y'all have to offer but I like what I see and I wish y'all well. Is there a possibility that something will flare up and all hell will break loose? Of course there is. There's always going to be that. But I think that the precautions that the city has taken and over the past couple of weeks may have kept that down to a minimum. I mean, this is the setup I'm generally used to whenever I go to one of their rallies. We're on their side, top's in the middle, they're on that side cussing everybody out. And usually they have that controlled entry where they're escorted in and then they're escorted out and then that's the end of the day. One question that comes to mind after watching that particular clip is do these groups exist to confront each other? And, Tom, do they? Well, there's something to that. I think they've fallen into a certain routine. They know what to expect from the other group. I have a feeling that the rhetoric that you're going to hear today on the streets of Pikeville is the same rhetoric that you heard at the dispute over the Holocaust Memorial in Columbus and that you heard in Sacramento, California. So some of this is very, very well rehearsed. Also, do you think is there an opportunity for us to see any type of trouble in downtown Pikeville today? Absolutely. If someone were to say a somewhat deranged person, were to somehow get a gun in and take a shot at somebody, I think that you would see some real trouble. I think that other guns are hidden or nearby. So I really hope and pray that our law enforcement folks are safe and that everything comes out peacefully. I think that's the most troubling thing and unsettling thing is that, you know, I saw one of the Facebook posts, many Facebook posts have been around today, particularly one that said, you know, we will be carrying, we'll have concealed carry. They have their license to do that. You know they're there and then I saw one of the groups were advocating the use of knives to conceal knives. If you didn't have a concealed carry permit for a gun, then certainly knives would do it. And that, you know, just really, it's so unsettling to think that that is going on in our streets and the majority of the people are here are not even from here. So my next question to you is why Pikeville? Why did they choose here when it could have been anywhere? Well, Pikeville for three reasons. One is eastern Kentucky has such a high percentage of fights. We have a very, very small minority population here and so I think that they felt it was a good place to recruit people, a good place that would be receptive to their message. The second reason is there was a lot of discontent here the last few years, primarily because of the war on coal. So, well, Donald Trump did very well in eastern Kentucky and I think that many of these groups want to associate themselves with that Trump wave. Now Donald Trump has actually denounced this sort of activity. I want to make that clear. I don't think he likes these groups. I don't think he supports these groups but it's also true that many of the members do support him and I think they've twisted some of his message. The third reason is Pikeville has a growing college in Eupike and you have to remember that Matthew Heimbach, the man who started the traditionalist worker party started his activities in college at Towson State. So he started a group called Youth for Western Civilization. He also headed a group there called the White Student Union. So that's his background and he has made it very clear in the traditionalist worker party literature and in he's also the national director of the traditionalist youth network from which the party grew out of that he wants to proselytize among high school and college students. In other words, he wants to get these people when they're young indoctrinate them and have lifelong members. Certainly. Tom, thank you so much to your commentary and certainly we'll be talking more throughout the day. Now let's go back downtown Pikeville to Shannon Deskins who was standing by live. Shannon. Okay, we'll go in. Thank you guys. We are live once again downtown. I'm on Main Street right now. Quarter of Division Street and Main Street. So what you're seeing behind me is the same group that is the rally that is happening today in downtown Pikeville. We'll actually walk a little bit closer to this group while we're walking. I'll tell you we are still waiting for the traditionalist worker party to arrive. I understand they're just a few miles outside of Pikeville but they are coming this way. Street. Now behind me is the area where the traditionalist worker party and that group is going to assemble. Now about this group arrived this is a small group that is supporter of the traditionalist worker party. So they are actually waiting on the main group to arrive and like I said we've got some people on the outlying parts of Pikeville watching and the traditionalist worker party are on their way so we understand they are just a few miles outside of Pikeville. So I anticipate still a few minutes before they arrive because as we said earlier parking is not easy in downtown Pikeville now the streets are shut off. You can see main streets. You can't come down any of the side streets. A lot of the local parking lots are closed as well. So as far as parking there isn't much. So they're going to have to get into town. They're driving from the location where they had their event yesterday. So we're going to stay downtown throughout the day. I believe Chris Anderson another EKB reporter is live right now on our facebook so we're trying to make sure that we give you every possible vantage point of this event downtown right now. So Jill and Gary as of right now we understand it will still be a few more minutes before the arrival of the traditionalist workers party but we will stay downtown and we will stay on top of the situation. So as always make sure you stay tuned to EKBTV, EKBTV.com our facebook page and on the stations of East Kentucky Broadcasting. So right now reporting from downtown Pikeville I'm Shannon Deskins back to you. Great job Shannon certainly stay safe and as Shannon mentioned we'll be with you throughout the day. EKBTV, EKBTV.com all of our facebook pages we have a group manning those pages and doing a fantastic job. Any live reports that we have will be on facebook and certainly we'll cut back in here. Absolutely we will and of course Tom will be staying with us as well and we do plan to be back here at six o'clock for a complete wrap up and you can also find continuous coverage on the EKB news facebook page. We will be back shortly. Stay safe. This is Extreme Speech an EKB News Special Report.