A group of pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Mississippi became surrounded by a larger and rowdy group of counterprotesters Thursday, and had to be escorted into a building by police.
Videos of the protest posted on social media show the larger crowd, of about 200 seemingly mostly white young people, surrounding and shouting down the multi-racial group of between 30 and 60 pro-Palestinian protesters.
Another video showed the counterprotesters singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” to drown out the chants from the pro-Palestinian protesters, while yet another video showed a large crowd of men, including two male students who appear to be white, in American flag overalls, yelling in the direction of a Black female graduate student. In the video, the woman appears to be walking toward the crowd while recording them on her phone.
The woman and the 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 a noise to simulate an ape. That person has not been identified.
Members of the crowd also chanted, “Lock her up!” as Smith was guided away from the hecklers by police, in a video shared on social media by Rep. Mike Collins, R-Georgia.
The racial elements of the encounter led many observers online to point out Mississippi’s long and storied history of violent racism against Black people. Its senators voted to send all of its Black people back to Africa more than 100 years ago. When the university was ordered by a federal court to admit Black students in 1962, 2,000 white people rioted against the arrival of new student James Meredith.
The initial demonstration in a fenced-off area of the quad took place as colleges across the country have become backdrops for pro-Palestinian protests ranging from small and peaceful to shockingly violent.
In a statement sent to news media shortly after the encounter, the university said it was “committed to supporting the rights of our students, faculty and employees to express their views in a respectful manner and to assemble peacefully as enshrined in the First Amendment. While today’s demonstration was passionate and several protesters and counter-protesters received warnings from law enforcement over their actions, there were no arrests, no injuries reported, and the demonstration ended peacefully.”
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