Oath Keepers founder, Jan. 6 planner speaks at Elgin church after 3 other venues cancel amid outcry

A Geneva-based conservative group successfully scrambled Tuesday to find a venue to host Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers and a convicted Jan. 6 organizer.

The Three Headed Eagle Alliance was able to have Rhodes give his speech at Greater Grace Community Church in Elgin, a nondenominational evangelical church on the city’s west side.

Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy in the planning of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. His sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump.

Rhodes was scheduled to speak about Jan. 6, his 18-year prison sentence, and his experience in prison, including a year in solitary confinement.

The event almost didn’t happen because three venues canceled. But by Tuesday evening, Rhodes spoke to a packed church.

A member of the Three Headed Eagles denied a reporter entry into the sanctuary to hear Rhodes or take photos.

Rhodes founded the Oath Keepers, a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti Defamation League describe as extremists.

When the Three Headed Eagle Alliance announced Rhodes as its guest speaker for September, protests began.

We Can Lead Change Fox Valley and Fox Valley Activists collected more than 1,000 signatures in an online petition asking the original venue, Eagle Brook Country Club in Geneva, not to allow Rhodes as a guest speaker.

On Sept. 4, the Three Headed Eagle Alliance announced on its website that Rhodes would not speak at Eagle Brook. Instead, the group said it would announce a new venue the morning of the event, which turned out to be St. Andrews Golf and Country Club in West Chicago.

A later announcement stated the venue had been changed again to Sky Banquets, also in West Chicago.

That fell through as well.

Opponents had been encouraged on social media to call and email the venues about Rhodes’s Jan. 6 notoriety.

Susan Dixon, a co-founder of the alliance and current vice chair, declined to comment.

However, in a Tuesday email from Dixon that apparently went to group members and ticket holders, she said the Rhodes speech wouldn’t happen.

“We are sorry to report that we are unable to bring you Stewart Rhodes tonight due to interference by the left who seem to have a stranglehold on the area venues,” according to the email, which was obtained by the Kane County Chronicle.

Later, the group announced the church as the new location.

At 7 p.m. Tuesday, the church’s lot was full, cars were still pulling up and parking on the grass, and residential side streets nearby were lined with cars. The church’s windows showed full rows in the sanctuary as Rhodes spoke.