Tag: Northern Kentucky

They were high school boys who had traveled from Northern Kentucky for the annual March for Life in Washington. He was a Native American man in town for a march to support indigenous people. On Friday, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, their worlds collided and generated an explosive political moment that has generated one cycle of outrage after another. The first images to ricochet across social media showed a young man, Nick Sandmann, wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat and appearing to be in a standoff with Nathan Phillips, the Native American man. More videos have shown that the encounter was preceded by taunting from a small group of dark-skinned men who shouted scripture from red books and identified as Hebrew Israelites. The group directed insults at the Native Americans and the Covington Catholic High School students, who were mostly white. Students said that after the confrontation with the Hebrew Israelites, they began doing school spirit chants. But those participating in the Indigenous Peoples March — noting the high school group’s large size, loud chanting and Make America Great Again apparel — said they interpreted the behavior as aggressive and disruptive to their demonstration. By Sunday, after Covington Catholic High School and the Diocese of Covington apologized in a joint statement, some families of the school’s students said they were receiving death threats. On Tuesday, the high school was closed because of “threats of violence and the possibility of large crowds.” A close look at the videos that have emerged paints a more complete picture of what happened on that Friday afternoon — and how an unlikely convergence of Americans became such a firestorm.