NJ Calls on American Legion to Not Host Event by Anti-Muslim Activist & QAnon-Associated Supporter

Scott Presler, formerly of the Islamophobic hate group ACT For America, and Darius Mayfield, a QAnon guy who is apparently running for Congress, are bringing their hate to American Legion posts in Middlesex Borough and North Brunswick, NJ on of all days Juneteenth! After their Memorial Day debacle (read on), the American Legion having another racism and undemocratic matter on their hands should be avoided at all costs. They don’t need another black eye.

Editorial

On June 19, 2021 Scott Presler, an anti-Muslim activist formerly of the hate group ACT For America, so designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center because it “pushes wild anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, denigrates American Muslims and deliberately conflates mainstream and radical Islam,” will be holding “political trainings” at American Legion Halls in Middlesex Boro (10a-1p) and North Brunswick (4p-7p). We urge everyone in these communities and the state to denounce and oppose his efforts to spread his hateful agenda.

In June 2017, Presler organized a series of anti-Muslim rallies across the country that found him working with neo-fascists like Joey Gibson of Patriot Prayer and Billy Roper and attended by Proud Boys, Identity Evropa and other White supremacists trying to make the most out of Donald Trump in the White House. Two years later, Presler staged a political stunt where he organized a cleanup of West Baltimore, MD initially as a way to try and defame their late Congressman Elijah Cummings after Trump suggested he wasn’t taking care of his district. Presler then expanded his cleanup stunt across the country and saw opposition in San Francisco, California not only because he and his supporters were throwing away the personal property of homeless people, he was also attempting to sow racial division between Black people and Hispanics with a “Blacks Before Illegals” theme. This in particular got him temporarily suspended from Twitter after writing “Black lives murdered by criminal illegal aliens don’t matter.” Presler was involved with Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally in Washington, DC and called the insurrection at the Capitol the ‘largest civil rights protest in American history.”

Darius Mayfield of East Brunswick, a self-styled “Trump Republican” who has announced a run against Rep. Bonnie Watson-Coleman next year will be with Presler at both these events He has organized cleanup stunts in New Jersey and on June 5 in Philadelphia. In a 2019 outing in Newark, NJ he was joined by associates of QAnon, the discredited American far-right conspiracy cult that borrows heavily from the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion hoax and alleges with no evidence that Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles run a worldwide sex trafficking ring and conspired against former President Donald Trump during his term in office. Mayfield has promoted QAnon’s so-called “Save the Children” rallies on Facebook.

It is especially concerning how the local American Legion posts have chosen to host Scott Presler’s event as they have in the past. It becomes a greater concern given the recent Memorial Day fiasco where a retired Lt. Col was silenced by Legion officials when he brought up the enslaved African-American origins of Memorial Day in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War. Now they’re allowing this perverse event on Juneteenth, which observes the Union Army announcement of freed slaves? That’s a really malicious message for recruiting younger and veterans of color veterans here.

The fact that this is being held on Juneteenth as well as during Pride month, it is a particular affront to all of New Jersey’s communities that despite Presler being a gay man and Mayfield an African-American, they chose to use this day to further the hatemongering that we have spent generations fighting against. This should not be accepted or tolerated amongst us.

American Legion Contact Information

Let them know what is going on in New Jersey and how it sullies the mission and what those members fought for – and against.

Twitter handle: @americanlegion

National H.Q.

700 N. Pennsylvania St.
Indianapolis, IN 46206

(317) 630-1200 (Tel.)
(317) 630-1223 (FAX)

Washington, DC Office

(202) 861-2700 (Tel.)
(202) 833-4452 (FAX)

Middlesex Borough Post #306

707 Legion Place
Middlesex, NJ 08846
(732) 356-9699
EMAIL: [email protected]

North Brunswick Post #459

1015 Linwood Place
North Brunswick, NJ 08902
(732) 249-4147
EMAIL: [email protected]