Protesters at Brown University heckled New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly right off the stage during a lecture he was scheduled to deliver to students last week. But Furman University hailed The Rev. Jesse Jackson as an “global peacemaker” as he slammed the Tea Party and called the United States the “land of the free, home of genocide.”
The civil rights icon spoke to students at the South Carolina college Wednesday night in an event titled, “Keeping Hope Alive: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement,” Campus Reform reported. But Jackson used the lecture to slam Republicans, going so far as to claim the Tea Party was born from efforts to preserve slavery in the tirade recorded by a Furman student.
“Those in the Confederacy sought to maintain the walls [of slavery] and secede from the country, the shots fired at Fort Sumter – the beginning of the Tea Party, the ‘Fort Sumter’ Tea Party, who sought to secede from the Union, set their own government, their own currency, sought to ally with France and Britain, to form their own country,” Jackson said.
He went on to bash President Ronald Reagan and former Republican Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, who, according to Jackson, were proponents of segregation.
“Goldwater and Reagan – had they been successful, it would have been illegal for blacks and whites to play together on a Saturday afternoon,” he said. “You couldn’t have had the Carolina Panthers behind the cotton curtain playing the Atlanta Falcons . . . it would have been illegal for them to even sit together.”
Students can be heard shouting “Preach it, preach it!” in the background, National Review reported.
But the former Democratic presidential candidate didn’t stop there.
Jackson continued, calling the U.S. the “land of the free, home of genocide,” a reference to the treatment of Native americans. Jackson claimed this treatment led to the naming of the Washington Redskins football team.
“In reality what happened was if If you killed an Indian … finally you got paid for the scalps of the red skins of the Indians … and that’s how we got the Washington Redskins football league.”
According to Campus Reform, Jackson was well received by the audience. But, there was some controversy surrounding his visit.
Students gathered outside the event to protest his speech and handed out fliers telling of Jackson’s controversial past. According to National Review, the literature was eventually confiscated by administrators who told the protesters to leave. But the students didn’t budge, saying they were protected by the First Amendment.
“It’s a shame that Furman decided to celebrate such a historical event with such a divisive individual such as Rev. Jackson,” Lauren Cooley, who organized the protest, told Campus Reform. “He’s been stirring up division for years through outlandish anti-Semitic, anti-white, and anti-conservative statements.”
Correction: This article originally stated that Furman University is located in North Carolina. It has been updated to reflect that its location is in South Carolina.
