Racist Stickers Found On Light Poles After Parade

CHICAGO — Stickers supporting a white nationalist group were found on several light poles lining the route of the South Side Irish Parade on Sunday. Leah Chibe, who marched in the parade with the Chicago Horned Frogs hockey team that's based out of the Morgan Park Sports Center, said she removed at least 20 of the stickers she found on poles on both sides of Western Avenue between 111th and 101st streets as she began to walk to a friend's house after the parade.

The stickers were promoting a group called the American Identity Movement, which Chibe said is a recent re-branding of Identity Evropa, an organization that's been dubbed a white supremacist and neo-Nazi group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"The American Identity Movement is what they are launching," Chibe, a West Beverly neighborhood resident for 13 years, said. "Some of Identity Evropa's chat logs were exposed and made them look bad so they decided to re-brand. But what they were doing is obvious."

Chibe said that while she believes "the vast majority of people in this neighborhood would be horrified" at the presence of the stickers at a neighborhood event that is estimated to have drawn 200,000 spectators, "there are also enough people here who would think that it is worth it to hear what (the white supremacist group) has to say."

"After seeing how much of the vote (neo-Nazi) Art Jones got (in the 2018 IL-3 congressional race), we know there are people who are on that side here," Chibe said. "It's partly that they are everywhere, but there is that undercurrent that goes with being in a majority white working class neighborhood like the 19th Ward and south suburbs. These groups see that and think they can recruit here."

All stickers promoting the racist group, which Chibe said were easy to rip off and likely put up the morning of the parade, were taken down by Monday when 19th Ward Ald. Matt O'Shea was informed of the situation and alerted the city's Department of Streets and Sanitation to remove them.

"I have requested the Chicago Police Department and Commission on Human Relations open an investigation into this matter," O'Shea said in a mass e-mail to ward residents on Monday.

"The racist and anti-Semitic positions espoused by this organization do not reflect the values and character of our community. We must forcefully speak out against this hatred and counter it with our own message of unity."

As a response, O'Shea and others in the community have begun to re-promote the "Hate Has No Home in the 19th Ward" signs to display in windows. O'Shea said ward residents can pick up a sign at his Beverly office at 10400 S. Western Ave.

Here's a look at a couple that are posted on the window of the Beverly Area Planning Association office.