An open carry activist patrols one end of the rally rallygoers filled Festival Street in downtown Hermiston during the "Hermiston Freedom Rally" on Saturday, May 30, 2020. The rally drew in excess of 100 people and sparked a counter-protest elsewhere in town.

HERMISTON — More than 100 people came out to the festival street in downtown Hermiston on Saturday, May 30, in defiance of COVID-19 guidelines against large gatherings for a “Hermiston Freedom Rally,” subsequently sparking a protest in opposition elsewhere in the city.

The rally was billed by organizers as a peaceful and apolitical “information sharing event” that would feature about a dozen speakers from across the state. Though organizers said they felt the event could have provided more detailed information for its audience, the rally remained peaceful despite concerns over potential conflict.

“It could have been better. I didn’t know exactly what every person was going to talk about,” said Colin Hodges, the event’s primary organizer. “I just thought, let’s bring in as many different people as possible from different positions in different communities and let them speak and see what happens.”

Community members and law enforcement expressed specific concerns about the appearance of Joey Gibson, who spoke first Saturday and is the founder of the far-right Vancouver, Washington-based group Patriot Prayer, but Hodges said he felt the event ultimately wasn’t defined by Gibson’s presence.

“As you can see it wasn’t all about Joey Gibson, and Joey’s a great guy,” Hodges said. “He’s a great, peaceful guy. He has a bad rap for some things, but that’s because the media spins things and portrays people certain ways.”

Reports have detailed Gibson and Patriot Prayer’s history of violent clashes with leftist protestors, particularly in Portland, and previously associated themselves with groups like the Proud Boys, an extremist group that has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and whose members describe themselves as “Western chauvinists.”

Gibson currently faces felony charges for inciting a riot for his role in a Portland street fight in May 2019 between Patriot Prayer members and members of the anti-fascist community that resulted in a woman being knocked unconscious and sent to the hospital with an alleged vertebrae fracture.

Joshua Linn is a teacher at Rocky Heights Elementary School in Hermiston and attended the beginning of the rally after he said a coworker texted him about its connections to white supremacist groups.

After standing and watching a few speakers from the back, Linn said he found most of them interesting and didn’t see any associations with white supremacy.

“It doesn’t seem like a white supremacist rally to me,” he said.

Gibson was joined by local speakers like HollyJo Beers, the local lead for the Three Percenters who is also running for Umatilla County commissioner. Beers didn’t use the rally as an explicit campaigning event but focused her time on the stage to discuss the Constitution and how she believes current restrictions are threatening the freedoms secured within it.

“We were pleased with the turnout and the people were dynamic speakers,” Beers said after the rally. “None of it was racist, none of it was non-inclusive.”

About three blocks away from the “Hermiston Freedom Rally,” a protest labeled “Essential not Sacrificial” started at the same time.

By noon, protesters all wearing surgical or cloth masks were taping posters to about 20 vehicles sitting in the parking lot at the corner of North First Place and Locust Avenue. Signs included “Thank you farm workers!” and “We are wearing masks for you, not us!” One vehicle sported a “Black Lives Matter” sign.

Organizer Diedre Torres said before the parade of vehicles departed that she was going to take them on a route through town that avoided the other rally.

“I’m just trying to concentrate on what we’re doing,” she said.

Luz Reyes said she was participating because she has friends who are farm workers and she is concerned about their safety. She said she wanted to make a statement for safe working conditions, living wages and job security.

“Being an essential worker, especially in an unsafe environment, especially not knowing what workload to expect, can be difficult,” she said.

Hermiston city councilors Manuel Gutierrez and Roy Barron were present at the Essential not Sacrificial event. Gutierrez said he wanted to show his support for essential workers in Hermiston and their desires to stay safe from COVID-19.

“I don’t want to bring the disease to my family,” he said, noting that he is also of a high-risk age.

The essential workers protest avoided any direct confrontation with the “Hermiston Freedom Rally,” though others opted not to stay away.

During a few of the speakers, a young black man stood holding a bright green sign with an expletive message written in Sharpie directed at President Donald Trump, while rallygoers tried to block it from view using American flags.

Hodges said he was asked to make the man leave the rally but that he wanted to welcome those who opposed them.

“Perfect, that’s what it should be,” Hodges said. “Stand up for your beliefs while we stand for ours.”

Other speakers included Rob Lovett, president of the Greater Hermiston Area Tea Party; Rob Taylor, a Second Amendment activist from Coos County; Jonathan Lopez, former candidate for Umatilla County commissioner; and Mark Hodges, Colin’s father and former head coach of the Hermiston High School football team.

“I think they did a good job of assembling people with different points of view,” said Steven Cranston, who attended Saturday’s rally with his family and said he wasn’t concerned about the risks of COVID-19.

While the rally was explicitly advertised as apolitical, it also featured tables and petitions for the newest initiative to recall Gov. Kate Brown, a movement that multiple speakers voiced support for on Saturday.

Some speakers delved into topics like abortion and vaccinations, while others directly accused Democratic leaders of deliberately implementing the “lockdown” to harm people. During his speech, Mark Hodges called public health officials doing contact tracing “murderous mercenaries.”

Though he said he’d prefer to foster an environment more akin to an “academic forum” rather than the “pep rally” atmosphere that developed, Colin Hodges felt the speakers stayed on track.

“They were more just so about freedom and about the government sort of encroaching on those freedoms and what we should do about it,” he said. “I think that was pretty consistent.”

Hodges also led the rally though prayer both to start and conclude the rally and made faith and religion a central tenet of the rally’s message.

After organizing and coordinating his first rally, Hodges said he’s determined to do more and has targeted the Fourth of July as the next potential date for another rally in the area.

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East Oregonian reporter Jade McDowell contributed to this report.