A grassroots effort in Montreal, Canada sprung up to spread peace and tolerance, and it has turned into a global movement.
Corey Fleischer was working at a graffiti removal company when he happened to notice a swastika spray-painted on a cinder block.
Initially, he drove away, but he later returned and removed it in a matter of seconds.
Now he locates and removes hateful graffiti throughout Montreal free of charge. He calls his movement Erasing Hate.
Armed with his #ErasingHate vest and a power washer, he drives throughout Montreal eliminating racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic symbols and phrases from public spaces such as walls and sidewalks, sharing his good deeds on Instagram along the way, with the support of his tens of thousands of followers.
A key component of the movement he started is to publicly share the location of hateful graffiti so members of the community can remove it.
His followers often submit photos, and he shares them along with the graffiti's location, mobilizing people worldwide to swiftly take action to remove it. In many cases, the graffiti is gone in a matter of hours after Fleischer shares it.
You can follow Corey Fleischer on Instagram at @erasinghate where he has more than 150,000 followers.
A version of this story originally ran in The Unconventional Activism Edition of the Goodnewspaper in May 2020. The Goodnewspaper is our monthly print newspaper filled with good news.
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