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SAVANNAH, Ga. After a deadly weekend of violence in Charlottesville, Savannahs Black Lives Matter chapter is currently preparing its response with sights sets on a local and national level.

The group says it is working on a six-week protest to affect change after what it says is injustice to society.

Anthony Smith is an Army veteran and member of BLM Savannah. He said Charlottesville was a turning point for action for himself and BLM.

It just wakes you up. You cant be complacent. You cant wait for good things to happen. You have to be the good things that happen, he said.

Sylvia Wells is a coordinator for the group. She says she is protesting to better her community and to be an example for her family. BLM Savannah, Wells says, is not a hate group but one that is based on understanding, conversation and education.

We dont want any violence, this is something that we stand for is peace, she said. [BLM Savannah] cant control who takes our name and they run with it with the things that they do but we are most certainly arent hateful. We love everybody.

Details are scarce on the protest, including a start date. The groups founder, Pastor Jomo Kenyatta Johnson is currently out-of-town conducting missions work. Johnson and Smith told WSAV there are plans to remove Confederate inspired monuments in Savannah, rename the Talmadge Memorial Bridge, and work towards to removal of President Trump and his cabinet.

The groups desire to remove the Confederate Memorial to the dead in Forsyth Park contradicts Mayor DeLoachs wishes to expand the story of memorial to be more inclusive.

Smith calls the memorial a slap in the face and says the call to preserve the monument is a way to romanticize history of the Civil War and the Confederacy.

BLM Savannah is currently working with other local organizations to organize and prepare for the protest. Smith told WSAV to expect BLM Savannah to be more visible while working peacefully to make a difference in the city and its criminal justice system, including working with law enforcement and elected city leaders.

Our goal is definitely to unify the city and to interface with our government in a way that creates long-lasting change from the top tiers of our government to the lowest individual in our society, he said.

Should law makers decide the statue stays in Forsyth Park, Smith says that while such a decision is not his intent, BLM members are not looking to respond by physically removing the memorial themselves.

Violence is violence. And that type of act enables violence, We cant use the tools of the enemy for our causes and pretend like the end justifies the means, he said.

Smith said anyone is welcome to join and converse with BLM Savannah. Ultimately, he is looking to make Savannah and the country a better place to call home for his children.

If were going to hand it to them in an as is fashion, then we maybe do a little bit more maintenance before the hand off, he said.

To learn more about the chapter, click here.

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It just wakes you up. You can't be complacent. Black Lives Matter Savannah planning protest following violence in ... - WSAV-TV

In August 2014, a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer fired six shots into Michael Brown, killing him. Locals swarmed the residential street where the 18-year-old's body lay for more than four hours. Brown's mother wailed at an officer who told her to settle down. A vigil became a protest, which became a battleground, which became history.

In Whose Streets?, filmmakers Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis offer a definitive timeline of Ferguson and the movement it birthed. Eschewing narration or commentary, the documentary relies on the perspectives of the young black men and women drawn to revolt on West Florissant Avenue. We watch in real time as a community subjected to years of civil-rights abuses rises up. We watch store clerks, factory workers, and unemployed Saint Louisans become activists. It's an important film that chronicles the birth of the modern police-accountability movement, giving voice and credit to local Saint Louis activists who played big roles but don't have the name recognition of, say, DeRay McKesson.

Whose Streets? also hits theaters as we recoil from the white-supremacist violence that struck Charlottesville. The timing, of course, is coincidental. But reliving the summer of Ferguson after the terror of Charlottesville, I could not help but to make connections.

The day after Brown's death, a QuikTrip went ablaze. Whose Streets? shows us nightly new programs glued to the flames. Reporters wonder just when will violence the violence end? Cut to activists asking why burning property triggers more outrage than the death of an unarmed black man. "A building is a building," a protester named Kayla tells us. Given the circumstances, setting one on fire is "a revolutionary act." How ironic that rage-ignited fire also appeared in Charlottesville, burning from the tiki torches of white men yelling Nazi incantations? But the flames in Charlottesville could not be confused for symbols of rebellion under oppression. They served as instruments of terrorism.

Around the one-year anniversary of Brown's death, we see protesters climb a grassy hill onto the interstate highway. They link arms before a line of vehicles. One motorist loses her patience and slowly rolls her SUV through the human barrier, forcing protesters to unclasp their hands before she speeds off. No one gets hurt in the confrontation, but it's not a stretch to imagine the episode ending in tragedy. Just a little more pressure on the gas pedal, and Saint Louis could have seen carnage similar to the scene after James Alex Fields Jr. rammed his car through a throng of counterprotesters in Charlottesville. Unlike the suspect Fields, who proudly expressed white-nationalist views on social media, we don't know what motivated this motorist to endanger lives.

Also unlike Ferguson, state agents did not inflict the deadly violence in Charlottesville. Still, our president effectively condoned the furious displays of white supremacy that led to the death of Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal. When Trump stood before the press in his Manhattan skyscraper and described the neo-Nazis who gathered in Charlottesville as "fine people," he explicitly took a side in direct opposition to the calls for racial justice that grew from Ferguson. When he derisively referred to counterprotesters as the "alt-left," he went one step further, villainizing citizens taking a stand against racism and hate.

Whose Streets? brings us intimate portrayals of activists who Trump might call "alt-left." Tory Russell, sitting in his living room, shows us his fingertip, still singed from a tear-gas canister. David Whitt, a Ferguson father and Copwatch recruiter, joins neighbors to release a flight of red balloons from the spot where Brown died. Brittany Ferrell and Alexis Templeton, who organized the highway action, get engaged at Saint Louis City Hall, their love born during the pursuit of justice.

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Whose Streets? Documents the Uprising That Birthed the Black Lives Matter Movement - TheStranger.com

Fresno Bee

Black Lives Matter signs vandalized at northeast Fresno church Fresno Bee Two Black Lives Matter banners hanging outside the Unitarian Universalist Church in northeast Fresno were vandalized either Tuesday night or early Wednesday, church officials say, but the church has banners ready to replace them. The word all was ...

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Black Lives Matter signs vandalized at northeast Fresno church - Fresno Bee

Idaho State Rep. Bryan Zollinger is trolling the media pretty hard right now with a series of Faacebook posts in which hes been sharing a ridiculous conspiracy theory that progressive organizations and activists staged the violent rally in Charlottesville in order to undermine the Trump administration.

Zollinger posted a horribly written screed from conservative outlet the American Thinker, in which a writer named Patricia McCarthy calls [t]he ridiculous campaign by virtually every media outlet, every Democrat, and far too many squishy Republicans to label Trump some kind of racist and Nazi sympathizer an orchestrated smear by Black Lives Matter, Charlottesvilles mayor Michael Signer, and others on the left.

In the piece, McCarthy equates Black Lives Matter protesters with white supremacists and characterizes them as demented racists:

Since that day, the call to remove the statues on display that honor any members of the Confederacy has become shrill and frenzied. Erasing American history benefits no one and only condemns us to repeat past mistakes. The supremacist groups had a permit; they had applied months earlier. The Antifa and Black Lives Matter groups did not have a permit. The local police at some point, on whose order we do not know, turned the pro-statue groups toward the Antifa and BLM groups, many of whom were armed with lethal weapons - soda cans filled with cement, bottles filled with urine, baseball bats and boards with screws protruding to do maximum harm, and improvised flamethrowers. These are the people who initiated the violence. How was this not a planned melee? Pit groups of demented racists all of them on both sides are certainly that against each other and violence is sure to occur. (Certainly, there were decent people among the protestors and counter-protesters who had no affiliation with the supremacist groups or Antifa or BLM. Heather Heyer was among them.)

She argues that Trumps responsein which he blamed both sides for the violence perpetrated by neo-Nazis and insisted that some very fine people marched alongside themwas appropriate and accurate.

So were the events of Saturday the result of a despicable plan to further undermine Trump? the piece concludes. There was plenty of time and Charlottesville is the capital of resistance. If it was, it was evil and deadly and the people involved need to be prosecuted. Or is this a wild conspiracy theory? Perhaps. But the pieces fit.

This is some Alex Jones-level fuckery, but Zollinger found this theory so compelling that he shared it on his Facebook page and continued to defend it as plausible in the comments. Wow, I found this article to be interesting if not thought provoking. I found some of the theories to be plausible and others to be maybe somewhat far-fetched, he wrote.

In two follow-up posts, he called the removal of Confederate Monuments revealing of the broken college system we have and the breakdown of the family and, for some reason, paired this comment with a George Orwell quote.

He also posted a big Fuck You to the media for covering his innocuous facebook post, saying that its led to an outpouring of support from friends and fellow Idaho Falls residents. Sadly, I might believe him about that.

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Idaho State Rep Calls Conspiracy Theory Claiming BLM Staged Charlottesville Violence 'Plausible' - Jezebel

Hundreds of protesters called for a boycott of the NFL at the football leagues headquarters, in support of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who is in danger of losing his career after refusing to stand for the national anthem.

On Wednesday, just weeks away from the start of the NFL season, a rally in support of Kaepernick was held outside of NFL headquarters in the New York City borough of Manhattan. A smaller solidarity rally was also held in Los Angeles.

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The Color of Change and Justice League NYC were a few of the groups in attendance. Hundreds of supporters showed up in support of Kaepernick and started chanting, Im with Kap.

Last year, Kaepernick prompted a league-wide dialogue after kneeling during the national anthem before a game. He refused to stand, so that he could call attention to the issue of police brutality, specifically towards people of color in the US, he said at the time.

Kaepernick continued the silent symbolic protest and eventually other NFL players followed suit, speaking out against minority-based police brutality.

Before their preseason game against the New York Giants on Monday night, 12 players for the Cleveland Browns took a knee during the national anthem. It was also the first instance of a white player joining in the act to express solidarity with Kaepernick.

In March, Kaepernick opted out of his contract with the 49ers. Now, as NFL teams prepare for their September 7 opening night, Kaepernick cant get any organization to sign him.

Linda Sarsour, one of the main organizers of the Womens March on Washington, was one of the featured speakers at the rally.

It takes real courage to go after the real white supremacists, the ones sitting in the boardroom, she said. We stand with Kaepernick.

Baltimore pastor Jamal Bryant told the crowd, Were not here for our health. Were here because this is a state of emergency for our community.

Were not trying to make America great again, were trying to make America great for the very first time, Bryant added.

Analysts, general managers and even the commissioner of the NFL have weighed in on Kaepernicks troubles finding a team to sign him.

When asked by SiriusXM if the quarterback was being blackballed from the league, ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith said, Without question, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had a different opinion on Kaepernicks situation and defended the league against the current accusations.

Well, my personal thoughts are... I support our players when they want to see change in society, and we don't live in a perfect society. We live in an imperfect society. On the other hand, we believe very strongly in patriotism in the NFL, according to AJC. I personally believe very strongly in that. I think it's important to have respect for our country, for our flag, for the people who make our country better; for law enforcement, and for our military who are out fighting for our freedoms and our ideals.

The general manager of the 49ers, John Lynch, stated that Kaepernick would have been cut from the team if he hadnt opted out, due to conflicts with 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan.

We both sat down and under that current construct of his deal, it was a big number. [Coach] Kyle [Shanahan] had a vision for what he wanted to do, and one thing I think Kyle was very clear and I think Colin appreciated, is that Kyle has an idea of how hed play with Colin Kaepernick,according to NBC. But he preferred to run the exact offense that he ran in Atlanta last year that was record-breaking in this league. And if you change it for the quarterback, you change it for everybody on that offense. So he had a great discussion that I think gave Colin clarity, so we moved on.

We gave him the option, You can opt out, we can release you, whatever. And he chose to opt out, but that was just a formality, Lynch said.

Critics of the assumption Kaepernick was released by his team because of his politics may point to his statistics during the 2016 football season.

Kaepernick statistically finished 26th out 30 quarterbacks in the league last year, completing only 59.2 percent of his passes, according to the Huffington Post.

The former 49ers quarterback also only finished with a QB rating of 55.2, which was 23rd in the league. It is not clear whether these statistics are coming back to haunt him now that he is looking for a place to play, Huffington Post reported.

READ MORE: Ouch! Phoenix rally protester gets pepper bullet to the groin (VIDEO)

Early Wednesday, the NAACP called for a meeting with the NFL on September 7 to discuss Kaepernicks fate in the league. In a letter written to Roger Goodell, the NAACPs Interim President, Derrick Johnson, said it is no sheer coincidence that Kaepernick is not on an NFL roster yet, according to ABC News.

Last year the NFLs television viewership dropped 8 percent and there is not a clear answer as to why it happened. The drop was not unprecedented considering it happened during the year of a presidential election, but it still left some wondering if it had anything to do with Kaepernicks protests. One poll conducted by ESPN showed the ratings drop, was, in fact, due to Kaepernicks protests.

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Black Lives Matter protesters target NFL headquarters in solidarity with Kaepernick - RT