Violence erupts on MSU campus as Richard Spencer speaks

March 5, 2018 in News by RBN Staff

 

Source: Detroit Free Press

Protestors chant slogans and physically confront attendees who were going to see Richard Spencer speak on the campus of Michigan State University. Mandi Wright, Detroit Free Press 

As his supporters brawled with protesters outside, Richard Spencer stood inside a Michigan State University building, blaming the violence on his skin color.

“No other group is treated with this kind of hostility,” he said during a speech that started more than a half hour late because of the fights going on outside. “It is only us. Precisely because we’re white. We’re the only ones showing the real crisis in modern America today. There is a silent war going on.”

The war was in full evidence Monday afternoon. It started about a half hour before Spencer — a white supremacist and self-defined leader of the so-called alt-right movement — was supposed to speak.

A group of about 20 Spencer supporters marched up Farm Lane toward the MSU Pavilion, located on the far south end of campus. Waiting for them were hundreds of protesters, who had been in place for several hours, standing on one end of a large parking lot, chanting and listening to music, while riot gear-clad police watched from the other end of the parking lot.

When the Spencer supporters appeared, the peaceful scene was shattered. Protesters rushed to block the path to the building. Both sides screamed insults and obscenities at each other.