York-area elected officials, organizations and pastors quickly mobilized in solidarity this weekend after a racist flyer appeared urging violence in response to last week’s melee near the York College campus.
For community leaders like NAACP President Sherry Roland-Washington, the flyer proclaiming “white power” recalled the city and the wider county’s fraught history, including the murder of Lillie Belle Allen during the 1969 race riots.
“Violence is never the answer,” Roland-Washington told the York Daily Record on Sunday, Sept. 20, adding that the situation felt like déjà vu.
In a written statement, York City Mayor Sandie Walker said local police are monitoring the situation.
“We will continue to respond based on verified information while protecting the safety and dignity of every resident,” Walker said. “York will not be divided by anyone seeking to provoke fear or hatred.”
Walker asked residents to remain vigilant, avoid sharing unverified information, refrain from confrontations and safely document and report any threatening materials or behaviors. If there is an immediate threat or emergency, they should call 911.
The Jackson Street melee
On Friday, Walker and other local officials announced that they’d ramp up patrols in the neighborhood where the original fight took place.
So far, police have charged three juvenile females in connection with the Jackson Street melee. Charges range from felony riot to defiant trespass.
York County District Attorney Tim Barker said none of the students who were struck received serious physical injuries during the incident.
Residents of the neighborhood told the York Daily Record on Saturday that Friday night was relatively quiet amid increased police patrols.
The group behind the flyer
The white supremacist flyer, which spread rapidly across social media starting on Saturday, invoked racist tropes and warned “all non-whites in York” involved in the York College incident — which drew national scrutiny, including a separate post from former Trump advisor Elon Musk — that they “will pay a heavy price.”
A URL printed on the flyer directed people to the Telegram account of Northeast Action, a group whose initial post in September 2025 called for more “nationalist action” in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s slaying.
More recently, Northeast Action members participated in an August 2026 “Keep New Jersey White” protest in Princeton, N.J., according to Patch. Local police there said 12 protesters turned out there with face coverings and a racist banner.
The group’s most recent Telegram post includes the same flyer that York residents reported seeing, in addition to a hooded figure giving a Nazi salute in a photo.
Northeast Action’s account states that it recruits members from “[New] Jersey to Maine,” including Pennsylvania. The Telegram account had 657 followers, as of Sunday morning.
It is not among the hate groups tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center. However, the nonprofit has noted a rise in flyering incidents nationwide.
The SPLC, which has tracked flyering nationwide, documented a marked increase in flyering activity that coincided with the 2020 presidential election. Those activities have continued steadily since then, with a more recent spike in activity in September and October.
Since 2018, when the SPLC began tracking such incidents, there’ve been at least 1,563 flyering incidents across Pennsylvania, including 42 on college campuses.
‘Accountability for violence’
The York NAACP chapter issued a statement in the wake of the flyer’s appearance. A flurry of similar posts decrying racism and promoting solidarity followed throughout the weekend.
“Our message is simple: Accountability for violence,” the NAACP statement read. “Zero tolerance for racism. Protection for every resident. No retaliation. No racial intimidation.”
“And we will not allow the actions of individuals to be used to divide an entire city,” it continued.
In recent years, racism has set the community on edge with events such as a Susquehannock High School student using a slur on Snapchat in response to a selfie and a restaurant owner who was recorded using a slur.
Over the weekend, various public officials have issued statements decrying the racist flyer and urging unity among the city’s diverse communities.
“We stand united in condemning any attempts to diminish, threaten, bully, intimidate, or harm Black members of our community,” read a post signed by nine different pastors of various backgrounds, shared by Pastor Aaron Anderson of Living Word Community Church.
The Rev. Joel Folkemer, of the Union Lutheran Church in York, centered the issue in his sermon on Sunday morning
“We want an eye for an eye when Jesus says no,” Folkemer said in the sermon. “Eye for an eye until the whole world is blind, right?”
