A group of pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Mississippi were surrounded Thursday by a larger, louder group of counterprotesters and had to be escorted into a building by police.
Videos of the protest posted on social media show a larger crowd, made up of around 200 young people, apparently mostly white, surrounding and shouting at the multiracial group of 30 to 60 pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
Another video showed counterprotesters chanting “The Star-Spangled Banner” to drown out the chants of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, while another video showed a large crowd of men, including two students who appear to be white, in American flag jumpsuits. , shouting in the direction of a black graduate student. In the video, the woman appears to be walking towards the crowd while recording them on her phone.
The woman and two men, whose identities NBC News has not independently verified, did not respond to requests for comment.
On the right side of the frame, another man can be seen jumping up and down and appearing to make noises to simulate a monkey. This person has not been identified.
Members of the crowd also chanted, “Lock her up!” while the woman was kept away from the troublemakers by the police, a video shared on social networks by Rep. Mike Collins, R-Georgia.
The racial elements of the encounter led many online observers to point out the long and storied history of violent racism against black people in Mississippi. Its senators voted to send all black people back to Africa more than 100 years ago. When a federal court ordered the university to admit black students in 1962, 2,000 whites rioted against the arrival of new student James Meredith.
The first protest in a fenced-off area of the quad came as universities across the country have become the backdrop for pro-Palestinian demonstrations ranging from small and peaceful to shockingly violent.
In a statement sent to media shortly after the meeting, the university said it was “committed to supporting the rights of our students, faculty and staff to respectfully express their opinions and peacefully assemble, as provided the First Amendment.” Although today’s protest was heated and several protesters and counter-protesters received warnings from law enforcement regarding their actions, no arrests were made, no injuries were reported and the demonstration ended peacefully.”
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This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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