The small town of Creswell, Oregon is situated in Willamette Valley, it has a population of a little over 5,300 people and wasn’t particularly remarkable from a national news perspective until thousands of people lined the streets for an Independence Day Parade this year.
That’s mainly because there wasn’t supposed to be an Independence Day Parade… the city had canceled it due to “impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic” according to The Register-Guard. Sure the city had fireworks and even a military fly-over, but the parade was canceled. It seems that didn’t sit well with some folks.
The ‘Rogue’ Parade — That Most Enjoyed
The ‘Rogue’ parade as it’s being called “went off without a hitch” from what ABC12 reported, but still some residents stayed away. Not for fear of COVID, but for political reasons. The parade that happened was arranged reports say, by the local Proud Boys.
Sergeant Scott Denham of the Lane County Sheriff’s office said that his officers would document who was in attendance and organizing and cite people later, at the moment they were just worried about safety.
“Anybody that participates in or organizes the parade is subject to citation for violation of any state or local laws or ordinances,” Denham said. “The biggest thing is we want people to be safe right now. We’ll worry about citations later probably. We’ll document — there’s three of us and way too many of them.”
“Photographs show participants wearing “Proud Boys” shirts and holding “PB” signs from their trucks.” Newsweek said. The flyers billed the parade as “the largest patriotic celebration in Oregon,”
“At least one person marching wore a shirt with a ‘Q’ written on it representing believers of the QAnon conspiracy theory,” the Register-Guard reported.
Naysayers like a former city councilwoman Martha McReynolds Jr. took issue with the parade calling it a “really nice facade and then if you scratch the surface at all, it becomes really clear, Creswell does not want a far-right job faire and recruitment rally.”, a rather dim view to be sure but many residents seemed to enjoy the festivities and expressed that they were glad to see the parade return in any form.
And the Proudboys, if they were in fact the main organizers put on quite a show consisting of 20 people carrying a massive American flag, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the West Coast Hummers group, several vintage cars, and ten people riding horseback in protest of a city code which prohibits the riding on the town’s main streets. (Nice!)
“There’s the potential of us being fined, but it’s OK, it’s Fourth of July and it’s peaceful,” said Christine Kiedrowski, one of the riders told the Eugene Weekly. Many residents even reported that the improvised parade was larger than last year’s that was canceled due to COVID.
KDRV.com wrote that “Despite the controversy, most residents said the event was a success.”
“There was a lot surrounding it, but I feel like in the moment people were really just able to enjoy it,” said Owner of Farmlands Market Jessica Landstra.
While doubtlessly many in the community don’t share their views and expressed some concern regarding the avowed Western Chauvinists organizing the ad hoc, impromptu parade, it’s pretty clear that at the end of the day the residents of Cresswell were pretty Proud of your boys.
Oh But The Leftists On Twitter… Yikes
All together now children… rrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sheriff: Let the parade go and cite later. Also sheriff: Yeah, we are not going to bother messing with the Proud Boys. It's a mini-January 6.https://t.co/Z9AabsF5Bs pic.twitter.com/PayCbdMPjP
— Jessica Pishko (@JessPish) July 5, 2021
Me thinking I was going to be in a normal 4th of July parade only to find out it's actually an illegal Proud Boys protest🥲
— Zach (@Just_Dewey_t) July 4, 2021
Local parade was interesting, we had proud boys handing out flyers trying to convince folks they weren’t racist. Also numerous sacrilegious crosses painted like the American flag.
— Sterling StoddⒶrd (@SLStoddard) July 4, 2021
Oh, it’s not you. I read about a ‘proud boy’ parade in Portland, and another weird one with men wearing white face coverings, kakis, dark shirt and a cap matching the pants…at 10:30pm on 07/03…there were scuffles but nothing too bad. There’s some strange shit going on…
— Karma (@spicielyn) July 6, 2021
Cops-And-The-Klan-Go-Hand-In-Hand in Creswell, OR | https://t.co/mtm42A7RYV
— Your Trusted Source For All Things ACAB Since 2012 (@OLAASM) July 5, 2021
Right Wing Extremist group "Proud Boys" host a 4th of July parade in the small town of Creswell, Oregon. https://t.co/qaQxroyDvk
— Emerald Valley ARA (@EVARA161) July 5, 2021
