New York — Donations to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), one of the oldest anti-discrimination organisations in the US, have spiked sharply since the violence in Charlottesville, the group said Monday.
ADL spokesperson Betsaida Alcantara said donations like the one from James Murdoch — the CEO of 21st Century Fox, who last week announced a $1m donation — as well as those from corporations such as Apple, Uber and MGM Resorts yielded a rise of "1,000%" last week, compared to the weekly average donations since the beginning of 2017.
The ADL, headquartered in New York, did not specify to which dollar amount this surge had led.
On Monday, big bank JP Morgan also joined the ranks of the donors, Alcantara said. The bank announced a million-dollar gift to be shared by the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center, a centre for studies of extremist movements, according to US media.
Donors have shown greater interest in supporting the ADL since the August 12 violence at a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
A woman was killed and 19 people injured during those clashes between antiracism demonstrators and white supremacists. President Donald Trump was the target of fierce criticism for not clearly condemning the extreme right.
Another organisation to combat racism and antiSemitism, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, has also recorded major donations since then. One came from California actor and former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
An estimated 40,000 antiracism demonstrators flooded Boston on Saturday to counter another rally by far-right groups.
AFP
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