Collins Phillips, head of the Student Equality Commission, led a march through campus in protest of the purple and gold Confederate flag for the third time in two weeks on Saturday.
Protesters waved posters with anti-flag messages while chanting “unity” as they marched.
While most tailgaters watched with a look of confusion, the demonstration drew booing and some racial slurs as well as cheers of support at points along the route. Though organizers acted pleased with the march, afterward they planned another demonstration, which will take place today in the Quad at 12:30 p.m., and a march for next Saturday before the Homecoming game against Appalachian State University.
Students gathered at the African American Cultural Center for a rally around 2 p.m. in order for students to voice their concerns about symbols they found offensive. O’Keefe addressed the students and reiterated comments he made at his speech Thursday about having a positive dialogue on the flag.
Phillips then asked the students if they were ready to go “meet the athletes?” He also warned anyone that was not prepared to be yelled at to not come.
While Phillips began to speak, more police officers who accompanied students on the march gathered around the AACC in cars and on bicycles.
Phillips told them they had to remain peaceful and that it would only take one person resorting to violence to ruin the movement for the entire group.
Students carried bed sheets reading “LSUnite” and “Unity,” as well as posters asking “Heritage or Hate?” A few signs questioned whether the purple and gold Confederate flag was the same as a purple and gold swastika.
The group chanted “unity,” “unite LSU” and “What do we want? Unity. When do we want it? Now.”
The group marched on the sidewalk down Ralph Semmes Road past the Union and then turned down Tower Road.
Between the Union and Tower, the group met the first tailgaters on the route and many watched in confusion or booed.
Jason Parks, a white tailgater and one of the first to comment yelled, “Good job Al,” a protester he said was his classmate.
“I believe he has a right to do what he is doing, and I’m glad he is exercising that right,” Parks said.
From Dalrymple, the group marched down Fieldhouse Road past Lockett Hall and the Design Building to South Campus Road.
At Lockett Hall a number of tailgaters began to clap.
The protesters then turned down Forestry Road toward Tureaud Hall where Phillips warned the group they could face louder and more vulgar opposition.
Phillips told the group to move the women to the inside and for the protesters to keep their cameras on the crowd to record their responses.
As the protesters moved past those tailgating in the Tureaud area, some yelled back at the group and a few tailgaters took the purple and gold Confederate flags off their tents and began to flap them in the air.
Tailgaters chanted, “Let it fly.”
The group turned down South Stadium Road and marched past the stadium to Nicholson Road.
Protesters encountered an influx of obscenities and race-related comments from tailgaters as the group approached the stadium.
One older man told the group to “get on the boat and go back to the motherland” and then “tiger bait.”
Another older man told the protesters to “go back to New Orleans.”
One older man wearing a straw hat yelled, “Go to Southern,” followed by racial expletives.
A student-age tailgater yelled, “Why are you ruining my University?”
One older woman set her drink down to scream, “You’ll never be respected because you can’t earn it.”
The protesters did not verbally respond to the yelling, and when the group made it to Nicholson, most of the obscenities had stopped.
The protesters then marched from Nicholson to North Stadium Road and assembled in front of Tiger Stadium near the locker room where the players enter.
When the group passed the student-section entrance, several students waiting for the gates to open held Confederate flags at the protesters.
Matthew Muller, history sophomore, said he had ancestors that fought in the Civil War and that it “was not a racial war.”
Rex Price, owner Tyler Martin Co. in Marysville, Kan., a company that sells purple and gold Confederate flags on eBay, said normally he sells about five or six flags a week but this past week he sold between 35 and 40 – most orders going to Baton Rouge.
Muller said he thinks that the tailgaters had the same number of flags but that students who had not previously flown flags brought them in response to the protesters.
“They can’t tell us what to do,” Muller said as he and his friends waved three Confederate flags. “I advocate their right to protest me – that’s their right.”
When the players arrived at the stadium, one made a peace sign at the group, but no other players acknowledged the group.
Phillips told the group they had acted respectfully and he was happy that this week some white students had marched with them.
Andy Dupre, theater senior who is white and participated in the march, said that he chose to march because he does not like to see people being persecuted.
Moshe Cohen, math graduate student who is also white and participated in the march, said that it is important to raise the level of awareness of issues like the flag.
“Inadvertent discrimination affects everyone,” Cohen said.
Inside the stadium, protesters with signs sat together near the tunnel in the North end zone in what is known as the “sit-down section” and flashed signs before and during the game.
When the team was leaving after warm-ups and the end of the first half, only one player acknowledged the protesters in the stadium.
Several students in the student section had purple and gold Confederate flags tied around their necks or held the flag in the stands.
One student, who refused to be identified, waved the flag before the game.
He said that the only reason he had brought the flag to the game was because other students were making the flag into a controversy.
“I wouldn’t do it if they didn’t make such a big deal out of it,” he said. “They do it every year.”
Contact Ginger Gibson at [email protected]