Man behind viral Black Lives Matter sign video explains why he did it
With the issue of police brutality and accountability still a hot-button topic around the United States, a young white man from Los Angeles decided he wanted to do his part by causing quite a stir in a small town.
Rob Bliss has gone viral after posting a video of himself holding a Black Lives Matter sign in Harrison, Ark., which he dubbed “America’s most racist town,” because it is home to the headquarters for the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, also known as the Knights Party. Throughout the video, which went online on July 27, he was met with disdain, harassment and even threats of violence by people in passing cars.
“Have a little pride in your race, brother! White pride worldwide!” one man yelled at Bliss.
“And what about white lives? We matter too. You’re a white man,” a woman said, while an elderly man told Bliss he’d better be gone by the time the man returned.
He was even asked to leave the front of a Walmart store by employees after people complained about his sign; he juxtaposed a tweet by Walmart’s corporate offices sent out in support of Black Lives Matter in the wake of George Floyd’s death. But the video ends on a more hopeful note, as Bliss receives a note from a girl in support of his efforts.
“Ignore the haters. You’re being peaceful. What you’re doing is good. Just a friendly reminder, don’t give up hope,” the note read.
As of Wednesday, his video had been viewed more than 1 million times.
Holding a #BlackLivesMatter sign in America's most racist town, headquarters of the KKK- Harrison, Arkansas. pic.twitter.com/2jUrCv14fV
— Rob Bliss (@robblissgr) July 27, 2020
Bliss tells Yahoo Life that, amid the protests around the country calling for justice for Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans who have been killed by police officers, he felt like he needed to take a stand.
“I can hear Black Lives Matter chants from my apartment window, and it kind of speaks to the fact that a lot of protests happen in spaces that are speaking to the choir a bit, and I felt that perhaps there was a need to start a conversation beyond the spaces that we would expect them, like in big cities across the United States,” he says.
The filmmaker says he chose Harrison because the small town had popped up several times while he was researching some of the most racist places in America. He then filmed the video over a three-day period from July 8 to 10 for six to eight hours a day, which was condensed into footage running just over two minutes. He says it’s just a summary of what he experienced in Harrison.
“I think sadly what I took away from this is two things,” he says. “One, being the gap between ‘blue America’ and ‘red America’ is vastly wider than people realize. We’re talking multiple degrees of separation between [Harrison] and pretty much any big coastal city. It’s just night and day in terms of belief systems, which is very depressing. Secondly ... this video is damning in the sense that it shows that there is still level-one base racism very prevalent in entire towns and communities.”
Bliss, who grew up in Michigan and Illinois, says many townspeople treated him as a “wayward son that had lost his way.” And though many disagreed with his message, they did try to approach him in a more passive way, something he felt would not happen to a person of color.
“As a white male, I have a privilege to go into these places that other people, like a male person of color, may feel very very uncomfortable going into and would feel unsafe,” he says.
Related: Black Lives Matter signs vandalized using ‘Thin Blue Line’ symbols
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, of the 15 hate groups that it tracked throughout the state of Arkansas in 2019, Harrison was home to four, tying with Little Rock. One of those groups included the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which was founded by David Duke in 1975 and has its headquarters in Harrison. As of July 2019, the U.S. Census also noted that 95 percent of the city’s population is white, with African-Americans making up only 0.9 percent.
PBS’s Independent Lens attributes that small percentage of Black residents to the town’s racist history, which includes a white mob storming a local jail in 1905 and dragging out Black inmates, whom they beat and ran out of town. The mob also targeted other Black residents by burning down their homes and, in 1909, attempted to lynch another Black prisoner. Black people living on the outskirts of the town decided to flee for fear of their lives, wiping out the Black community completely for several years.
John Gripka, a professor of social sciences at Northern Arkansas College (NAC) and a 10-year resident of Harrison, tells Yahoo Life that he was not very surprised by what he saw on the video.
“Just based off living in the area and getting a feel for the climate, it’s kind of sad to say that I wasn’t totally shocked by some of the responses he got,” he says, but adds that “the vast majority of the people are not” racist.
“They are good and decent people, but I think every community has those few loud voices, for whatever reason, now more than ever are being heard,” he says.
Boone County Judge Robert Hathaway, Harrison Mayor Jerry Jackson and Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Bob Largent issued a statement on July 28 expressing similar sentiments.
“The video does not represent Boone County nor the City of Harrison. While we cannot excuse the reprehensible behavior and words of individuals recorded in the video, we know for certain that they do not reflect the views of the majority of the good people of our communities. It is obvious there is still work to be done in our area and across the nation. We must constantly strive to do better, and we pledge our continued efforts in that regard,” the statement read.
Gripka adds that Harrison was one of the few small towns that held a Black Lives Matter rally, which took place on June 4. And on Aug. 2, just days after Bliss’s video went viral, another protest was held in the city. Organized by Bridge the Gap NWA and promoted by Ozarks Hate Watch, the march saw protesters go from Harrison to the nearby town of Zinc, where they were met by armed opposition as they approached a KKK compound.
The protests could be a sign that change is afoot. Bliss recalls the college students who offered him something to drink while he was continuing his protest, as well as the unknown girl who gave him the note after he had faced hours of taunts.
“She really summarized that sentiment of change and belief in the future,” he says.
But he resists the argument that his experience was down to just a few bad apples, noting there is still a public billboard on the city’s main highway celebrating white pride.
“They drive past it every day, and the whole town is complicit in accepting that. And if this video is not who they are, then they have to come together as a town and take down that billboard. Otherwise they are complicity agreeing with that message,” he says.
According to Gripka, there have been attempts in the past to take down the billboard, but it has remained up for at least five years. He says the community needs more “education in terms of being more exposed to the way other people are living in different parts of the country” if progress is to be made.
“This place pretty much exists as a bubble, and a lot of people that live here have never lived anywhere else. And I don’t think [they’ve] even traveled very much. So it’s hard for their minds to wrap around people living and experiencing different things within our own country,” Gripka says.
Meanwhile, Bliss has started a legal defense fund on GoFundMe to help with possible legal expenses after being threatened with multiple lawsuits by Harrison residents who did not want him to post his video. But he also makes sure to highlight the fact that it is not his place to be the face of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I’m not meant to be a leader in any of this, like it’s really not my place,” he says. “I think this [video] was a unique opportunity for me to use my position to further a voice and play my part.”
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