'Sick to my stomach': Trump's visit to Jacksonville on 'Ax Handle Saturday' sparks outrage
Nearly 60 years ago, 16-year-old Rodney Hurst led a group of 33 Black teenagers in a peaceful sit-in to integrate a “whites only” lunch counter at a department store in Jacksonville, Florida.
At the same time a few blocks away, about 200 angry white men, many dressed as Confederate soldiers and armed with ax handles and bats, stormed the store to attack the demonstrators.
Many of the teenagers were beaten and bloodied. Some, like Hurst, escaped unharmed, but were forever psychologically scarred.
The episode became known as Ax Handle Saturday — Aug. 27, 1960, a date that takes on greater meaning now because, on its 60th anniversary next month, President Donald Trump will accept the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville, mere miles from the attack.
This is the same Trump who has been divisive and inflammatory on racial issues, incapable or unwilling to at least attempt to bridge the divide during nationwide protests for justice after George Floyd was killed in police custody in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. Recently on Twitter, for example, Trump called the Black Lives Matter movement, which in many cases is leading the demonstrations, “a symbol of hate.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/black-residents-oppose-trumps-visit-133356138.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
