A crowd of between 300 and 400 people marched through downtown Woodstock on Saturday in an effort to raise awareness about child sex trafficking.
The march was organized largely through a Facebook group that has grown to more than 4,000 members in just a few weeks.
“It needs to be understood,” organizer Stephanie Grohe of Alpharetta said to the crowd before the march left from Woodstock Elementary School. “It needs to be exposed.”
Similar “Save the Children” events were staged across the nation Saturday from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Chicago to Hollywood in a fast-growing movement that has raised concerns about its relationship to the QAnon conspiracy theory. Grohe and others involved in the Woodstock event were adamant that their group was not involved with the QAnon.
“I made very clear directives in the group. I kicked somebody out of the group this morning because they were determined to bring their Q posters,” Grohe said. “I told them this is not about Q. ... It’s about the children. It’s about trafficking. It’s in support of what Gov. Kemp is doing.”
Gov. Brian Kemp announced Wednesday the creation of a new GBI unit to tackle human trafficking.
While most marchers carried signs generically in opposition to child sex trafficking, a dozen or so ignored Grohe’s warning and carried signs referencing the sprawling conspiracy theory that an elite group of politicians and celebrities kidnap and torture children. Throughout the approximately mile-long march, a substantial portion of the marchers in the rear chanted the QAnon motto, “We go one, we go all.”
Grohe said the majority of the marchers were focused on ending child sex trafficking and shouldn’t be judged by a vocal minority.
Similar QAnon signs were visible in marches throughout the nation Saturday.
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