White lives matter, white lives matter.
Thousands from the alt right
expected today in what could be
the largest gathering of hate groups in decades.
As right wing extremism has grown in the U.S.
and around the world, so too has resistance to it.
A massive counter protest.
We can't hear you.
We're here to tell them
that we won't stand for that hate
Far, right rallies
rarely play out without confrontation.
That's because contemporary antifascists
often called Antifa in the States
looked back to a moment in the 1930s for guidance.
Look a little closer, this isn't Nazi Germany, but Britain.
Back then a newly formed party,
the British Union of Fascists was gaining momentum.
Like Hitler's Nazis, the BUF appealed
to a section of frustrated conservatives
and workers during the Great Depression
with protectionist and nationalist policies.
But before they were able to grow
into a significant political force,
they lost a vital contest.
The Battle of Cable Street.
My name's Mark Bray, I'm a historian
at Rutgers University.
My research focus is modern European history,
and I'm the author of "Antifa rhe Anti-Fascist Handbook."
So fascism is among other things,
it is a kind of reaction against
the perception that traditional values
or ideals or pillars of society
or of gender or of the race or the nation are under threat.
And they use this kind of rhetoric
to create this masculine, virile,
as they see it form a violent politics
and regrow the nation or the race.
We need a new movement,
a modern movement, of youth, of energy, of manhood.
And so in the 20s, Mussolini takes power.
1933 Hitler of takes power.
Initially the left views fascism
to a large extent as a rebranding
of traditional conservative politics.
And it takes a while to see fascism and Nazi-ism
as new existential threats,
not only against the left, but against much of society.
In 1936, the British Union of Fascists
planned a March through the East End of London,
which is made up of a largely immigrant
and Jewish population at the time.
Passing the town of London,
5,000 fascists rallied to their mobilization
for the much advertised march through the East End.
And Sir Oswald Mosley, that's their leader,
arrives at Royal Mid Street to inspect his followers.
Sources vary but at least 100,000 antifascists
and counter protesters show up
to prevent the march from even happening.
Thousands of bystanders
prepare to resist the invasion,
barricading the path the fascists would take.
6,000 police are already concentrated in the area.
Others are rushed to reinforce them.
Feminists, labor rights, and Jews
jammed the fascists' route.
The antifascists set up barricades
across Cable Street using building materials,
torn up paving stones, and an overturned truck.
Now the crowd take matters
into their own hands.
Local residents launched projectiles
from their apartments,
even emptying the contents of their chamber pots
on the advancing police to prevent them
from allowing the fascists through.
Mounted Police come to
their colleagues' help, batons are drawn, and heads broken
as the anti fascist demonstrators
resist efforts to disperse them.
Sir Oswald Mosley was informed by the police commissioner,
Sir Philip Game and told him that
to avert serious bloodshed, the march was banned.
Altogether, 84 rioters are taken into custody.
Inspired by the Spanish Civil Wars
anti-fascist forces, the protestors chanted the slogan,
"no pasaran," they shall not pass.
To control extremist political movements like the BUF,
the Public Order Act of 1936 was passed.
It outlawed the wearing of political uniforms
in any public place or meeting.
Section Five of the bill made it a criminal offense
to use threatening, abusive, or insulting words or behavior,
and has been used to prosecute amongst other things,
racist and homophobic abuse.
But following the Battle of Cable Street,
the BUF didn't suffer quite as much
as was originally made out.
In fact, it's membership rose
and some in its leadership noted,
it gained where it had opposition
most probably due to the media attention it attracted.
Antisemitism intensified.
Presumably the plan was to play the victim
and to try to appeal to broader society and say,
woe are we the fascists
because these rowdy antifascists
won't let us carry out our "peaceful march."
The self defense of those who are under attack
is used by fascists as evidence of their inhumanity,
of their kind of indecency, of their violent nature.
And so there's this, you know,
lose lose scenario where those who are defending themselves
against fascists, of course if they don't defend
themselves are victimized
and if they do there's an attempt
by the fascist to portray them as inherently violent
and therefore deserving of exclusion from society.
But it wouldn't be long
until war broke out in Europe.
By 1940, the BUF was banned
and hundreds of its most prominent figures were locked up.
The biggest victory is perhaps one of memory
of reclaiming a narrative by a diverse community
with a shared revulsion of the fascist vision,
inspiring plenty of protests since
Cable Street's power lasts to this day
and has traveled beyond the boundaries of the U.K.
Its name even claimed for a podcast
that deals with today's battle against the far right.
Its circumstances resonate with anti-fascist resistance
in parliamentary or representational democratic societies.
It's different to think about resistance
once there's a fascist regime in power,
but this is what do we do when a small
or medium sized fascist party is on the ascent?
Well, the Battle of Cable Street
is one kind of dynamic example
that is comparable in some ways to Charlottesville in 2017,
when the Unite the Right Rally
was stopped by anti-fascists and antiracists.
White nationalists carrying tiki torches
as they marched through the streets.
More than 1,000 counter protestors met them.
Socialists may argue with communists, with anarchists,
with trade unionists what have you,
but to sort of put those stories aside
and create a kind of counter story,
a counter narrative of unity
in resistance to fascism,
of historical storytelling about how our ancestors
or ideological ancestors stood up to this kind of threat,
or maybe should have stood up to it more.
The Antifa movement of today
disrupts right events and speakers and uses
a variety of tactics.
We come kind of assemble.
Many conservatives here,
say that Antifa not the far right, is the real danger.
It's often criticized
for the use of violence.
With President Donald Trump,
even threatening to designate it a terrorist organization.
Legal experts contend that not only
is this unconstitutional, but it's extremely unlikely
seeing as Antifa doesn't really exist as a distinct entity.
I think at the heart of the issue is the fact
that antifascism is an illiberal politics
that refuses to have faith in the power
of open discourse to get it right politically.
Antifascists argue that we can't
and that in the kind of rare and exceptional circumstances
that constitute white supremacists
or fascist organizing that shutting it down
is really in the interest of promoting a society
where everyone feels the ability
to share their, their ideas and their perspectives openly.
The lesson that fascist regimes come
to power often illegally as was the case
in Italy or Germany and so for that reason,
antifascists have a skepticism
about trusting in the parliament or the police
or the courts to stop the rise of the far right
and insist upon a kind of broader community opposition
from the ground up as was evident in Cable Street.