Is he a c00n or just a decent man?
- Thread starter TheSpook
- Start date
Kripplestyle
Beaker
What's this about?
Read brodie
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Amid angry demonstrations over the Confederate flag last weekend, a quiet gesture of human kindness unfolded on the steps to South Carolina's Statehouse: A white man overcome by the sweltering heat and wearing a Nazi swastika on his T-shirt was escorted to rest and shelter by a black man wearing an officer's uniform.
That man in the uniform was Leroy Smith, who runs the state Department of Public Safety, and a photo of his Saturday encounter with the man wearing the swastika has gone viral on the Internet.
Smith said Wednesday that he didn't think twice about assisting the ailing man.
"I saw a man who needed some help, and I was going to help him," Smith told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
Smith said the man in the photo was actually the second demonstrator he helped up the Statehouse steps in the 100-degree heat, as tensions between white supremacists and counter-protesters behind police barricades mounted.
"You could feel the tension in the air as the crowd started to swell," Smith said.
The rally organized by the North Carolina-based Loyal White Knights of the KKK overlapped an earlier rally on the opposite side of the Statehouse organized by a Florida-based group affiliated with the New Black Panther Party.
The dueling rallies came one week after the Confederate flag was removed from Statehouse grounds. The Legislature voted to remove it following the massacre of nine parishioners at a historic black church in Charleston, including the pastor, Sen. Clementa Pinckney. The white man charged with killing them had posed with a Confederate battle flag in online photos.
About 50 people rallied with the KKK, including members of the Detroit-based National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group.
They gave no speeches, but shouted "white power" and racial insults as they walked back and forth behind the barricade waving Confederate flags. Shouting and obscenities escalated between them and the crowd, and officers broke up some fights. Smith monitored the scene as he paced back and forth on the Statehouse steps.
Smith said that's when a protester approached, saying someone needed medical help. Smith and Columbia Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins, who also is black, responded to a demonstrator overcome by the heat.
The first white demonstrator they helped climb the steps and enter the air-conditioned Statehouse could walk on his own. The second clearly could not, Smith said.
"He was struggling, fatigued, appeared to be lethargic. I knew there was no way he could make it up the steps on his own," Smith said. So Smith coached him up the steps, putting his right hand on his arm and his left arm around his body.
Smith didn't get the man's name, and they had no extended conversation.
AyBrehHam Linkin
First Black Brehsident
breh just seemed like he was doing his job, but i doubt white dudes opinion about blacks changed. we basically helped this nation up the steps of history very similarly to this situation and we're still looked down upon 
.
to me it just shows that we're better than they are at the end of the day
.to me it just shows that we're better than they are at the end of the day
c00n
Field Marshall Bradley
Veteran
Doing his job basically