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The group plans to protest at the site of a confederate statue downtown.

The Houston chapter of Black Lives Matter will hold a rally at Sam Houston Park on Saturday, August 19th, according toAshton Woods, a representative of the organization in Houston.

The rally will take place at 3:00 p.m., to demand that the City of Houston takes down The Spirit of the Confederacy statue and other Confederate monuments located on public property, Black Lives Matter says.

In response to this, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said on Thursday that the Houston Police, who handled protests during the Super Bowl earlier this year, are prepared for this one as well.

I just hope people will be respectful and follow the laws and will act in a very civil way, Turner said. You know, people have the right to voice their First Amendment. But I have so much confidence in HPD in making sure that everything is handled in a very orderly and respectful fashion.

Turner said he doesnt anticipate any violent demonstrations in Houston, and that he will continue with his plan to consider the removal of Confederate monuments located on public property.

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Black Lives Matter Schedules Rally In Houston For Saturday - Houston Public Media

North Carolina state Sen. Dan Bishop (North Carolina General Assembly)

After the deplorable racist and violent incidents that happened over the weekend in Charlottesville, Va., many have spoken out against the white supremacists involved and called for action to be taken. One state senator in North Carolina took it a step beyond by calling Black Lives Matter a violent, racist movement and comparing it to those waving Nazi flags.

Dan Bishop is a Republican who represents Senate District 39 in Mecklenburg County. On Sunday he took to his Twitter account to condemn the events that happened in Charlottesville, which he called terrorism. He then said that those involved must be stopped, right along with members of the anti-fascist and Black Lives Matter movements.

Must declare even if unilaterally, Biship wrote. 1) That was terrorism 2) Racist alt-right must be condemned 3) Antifa, BLM also.

Bishop ended his tweet with the #Charlottesville hashtag.

Twitter user Jeb Stuart (@jebstuart) immediately asked Bishop if he was equating Black Lives Matter with those waving Nazi flags.

Yes. Both violent, racist movements, Bishop replied.

What is racist about acknowledging the humanity of black people? Stuart asked.

I had in mind their chant: pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon. But knew better than to expect reciprocal decency, Bishop wrote.

Stuart went on to ask Bishop if the fundamental purposes of the two movements are morally equivalent. Bishop never answered that question.

Im going to guess that the reason Bishop avoided answering that question is that he knows the two movements are nothing alike, and this latest push to create fault on both sides is just another derailment meant to make the racist right look less evil than it really is.

The whole pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon is nothing that I have ever heard chanted at a Black Lives Matter demonstration, and Ive been to plenty of them. It is an overused rumor meant to cast a negative light on a movement that simply wants acknowledgment that black people deserve to live just like everyone else.

No one is ever able to point to any concrete evidence of BLM demonstrations actually using that chant; nor are they able to list any any actual acts of domestic terrorism committed by any member of Black Lives Matter.

We do have, as Twitter user @NCleftist points out, a real list of acts of domestic terror committed by right-wing terrorists60 of them since 1995, to be exact.

People who see Black Lives Matter as a racist group just by virtue of the name are, in fact, racists themselves.

If the fight for the humanity of black people is one that disturbs you, you need to analyze your own problems and leave the rest of us alone.

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State Senator in NC Calls Black Lives Matter a 'Violent, Racist Movement' Comparable to White Supremacists - The Root

Singer Kat Grahams chance encounter on aflight to Atlanta led her to help create a bold new public service announcementfor Black Lives Matter.

The concept of the chilling campaign, which features the parents and teacher of Josh, who made one wrong decision that led to his death, was the idea of J. Walter Thompson Chief Creative OfficerVann Graves.

Graves explained that he was inspired to write the concept in 2014 when his wife was pregnant with their first child, Graham wrote on Instagram Wednesday, Aug. 16. In the days before the birth of Graves son, both Laquan McDonald and 12-year-old Tamir Rice were killed by police officers. His frustrations and concern for his sons future sparked this idea to use his creative platform to raise awareness for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Stay on the Pulse of Black Lives Matter:

Graham, who first met BLM founders Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometilast year at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards, identified with Graves concerns. She produced the spot, which is titled At-Risk Youth and features civil rights activistRev. Raphael G. Warnock, Ph.D.

Every single murder that happens where these officers are exonerated and theres no justice served, I felt gutted, Graham told Essence.

This is not about all white cops wanting to kill Black people, but moreso about the value of Black lives, said Graves, who is the most successful Black ad agency executive in the country, to Essence. Black lives do matter and it has begun to feel that we are disposable.

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Singer Kat Graham On Black Lives Matter PSA: 'I Felt Gutted' - Atlanta Black Star

In the aftermath of violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, progressive activists nationwide have demanded, and in some cases illegally carried out, the tearing down and removal of statues and monuments to Confederate leaders and soldiers on public space. Now Black Lives Matter activists have gone even further going so far as to call for a ban on all Confederate imagery even in private possession.

Inspired by Germanys post-war laws banning any and all Nazi imagery, Black Lives Matter activists on Twitter called for a similar ban on Confederate imagery or memorabilia.

After WWII, Germany outlawed the Nazis, their symbols, salutes & their flags. All confederate flags & statue, & groups should be illegal, tweeted the Black Lives Matter Chicago Twitter account, @BLMChi.

"The fact that the Confederate flag & statues permeate the south is evidence that white supremacy was never overthrown in the United States," the @BLMChi account tweeted three minutes later.

Outlawing all Confederate flags, symbols, statues, and groups would not only be indescribably impractical taking into account the existence of battlefield monuments, graves, Civil War re-enactors, every single souvenir shop within a 10-mile radius of Gettysburg, historical computer games, and Lynyrd Skynyrd albums it would also be illegal.

"Even the most liberal Supreme Court justice knows that the remedy to hateful or offensive speech is opposing speech," Eddie Zipperer, an assistant professor of political science at Georgia Military College, told LifeZette. "This would be a blatant violation of the First Amendment."

"Leftists always haul out the argument that you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater, so free speech has limits," he said. "But that argument is nonsensical. Historically, the Supreme Court goes to any length to protect political speech even wildly unpopular speech."

Zipperer provided as an example the decision in the 2011 case Snyder v. Phelps, in which the court ruled 8-1 to "protect the absolutely horrible, hateful speech of the Westboro Baptist Church during a protest of a dead soldier's funeral."

"That case was decided by all the same justices we have now, except Scalia was on the court instead of Gorsuch," he noted. "The Supreme Court has allowed almost no limitation on political speech, and there's no reason to think that will change."

Similar rhetoric pointing a finger of wrong at any and all Confederate memorabilia came from at least one lawmaker.

"Confederate memorabilia have no place in this country and especially not in the United States Capitol," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) in a statement to The Hill.

The entire Congressional Black Caucus called on Wednesday for the removal of all Confederate-related statues in the nation's Capitol.

"The Congressional Black Caucus and the Black Lives Matter movement ignore the reality that the central figures in Confederacy, from Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis, were also central figures in American political life," said Dr. Lee Cheek, Dean of Social Sciences at East Georgia State College and a Senior Fellow of the Alexander Hamilton Institute in New York.

"Most of the more important figures were the children of heroes or veterans of the American Revolution," Cheek continued. "For example, CSA Brig. Gen. and Secretary of War George W. Randolph was the grandson of Thomas Jefferson. Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor, CSA, was the son of General and President Zachary Taylor and the grandson of a Revolutionary War officer."

"As the great American historian Dr. Clyde Wilson has noted, there are hundreds and hundreds of these historical connections; in other words, this is an American story as well as a Civil War story that should be shared with the rising generation in its fullness," he said.

"The greatest threat to Congressional Black Caucus' new 'cultural revolution,' inspired by an illiberal and anti-democratic worldview, is an environment in which free and uninhibited discussion and disagreement can take place," Cheek continued.

"In fact, diversity of thought is the opposite of their desires, but is at the heart of a free society. The proponents of historical cleansing are on the ascendency, and the authentic study of the American South is the victim," he said.

The particular assault on statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee showcases the degree to which emotion has overridden important historical context.

Robert E. Lee, that alleged symbol of white supremacy and racism, not only personally opposed overt displays of Confederate symbolism after the war but also believed that the entire war the Confederate defeat and the personal loss of his Arlington property and fortune was worth it to see slavery ended.

"I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished," said Lee in 1870. "I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have lost all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained."

(photo credit, homepage image: Dschwen, Wikimedia; photo credit, article image: Donald Lee Pardue, Flickr)

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Black Lives Matter Activists Float Criminalization of Confederate Imagery - LifeZette

The singer is unapologetically standing with the organization with this P.S.A. she produced.

When Kat Graham was approached about doing a video for Black Lives Matter, she was eager to help. In 2015 she produced a film with creative partner, Darren Genet called Muse but hadn't done anything quite as serious before.

"I winded up meeting Patrisse [Cullors] and the other two leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement at the Glamour Women of the Year event I believe it was last year," Graham told ESSENCE.

"I said, 'Listen, I really want to do something with you guys. Let's exchange information. We'll figure something out.' Nothing had happened for awhile and I winded up being on a plane and sitting in someone else's seat on accident. And the guy's seat that I sat in, his name is Vann Graves."

That chance meeting turned into a conversation about passion projects, which led to Graham and Graves collaborating to create At Risk Youth.

In the one-minute clip a young man who's passed away is talked about in past tense by members of his family and community. Talking about the unfortunate nature of death one may assume he was armed when killed, but it turns out he was wearing a hoodie.

"Every single murder that happens where these officers are exonerated and there's no justice served, I felt gutted," Graham said about what prompted her to be apart of this project. "I think that I am somebody that has a pretty large social media following and I do a good amount of press, but there was a part of me that just felt that, you know, tweeting this or just the hashtag, it's just not enough."

RELATED: Kat Graham Cast as Jada Pinkett Smith in 'All Eyez On Me'

Graves, anadvertising executivewhospent 13 years in the U.S. Army after the September 11th attacks, was prompted by his son.

"As an African American man, I understand and accept that I have to deal with bias every day everything from micro-aggression to outright racism," Graves said about making the video. "But I was horrified by the realization that my innocent, beautiful son would be coming into a world that doesn't value his life."

Adding, "This is not about all white cops wanting to kill black people, but more so about the value of black lives. Black lives do matter and it has begun to feel that we (African-American's) are disposable."

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Watch the video above and to learn more about BLM,go here.

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Kat Graham Is Using Her Platform To Back Up Black Lives Matter - Essence.com