Teens in MAGA hats spark outrage at Indigenous Peoples March

This post has been updated to include statements from a teen and protester featured in the viral videos, as well as more context about the event. Further clarity about the confrontation and its aftermath has also been included.

A group of young Donald Trump supporters has come under fire after taunting a group of Native Americans at the Indigenous Peoples March on Friday.

But one teen, who has become the face of the viral moment, says his actions have been taken out of context. And another, separate, and much smaller, group of protesters linked to the Black Hebrew Israelites have further complicated the storyline. 

On Jan. 18, Washington, D.C. hosted both the Indigenous Peoples March and the anti-abortion March For Life. Groups from both, as well as a handful of Hebrew Israelites, converged near the Lincoln Memorial, leading to a confrontation that would be shared in viral videos throughout the weekend. 

Footage shows dozens of teenage boys — proudly decked out in Make America Great Again apparel — in a loose circle around Native American protesters, with several seemingly mocking the demonstrators.

At one point, a protester and a smiling teen came face to face, a move that would come to symbolize the polarizing encounter on social media. The 64-year-old protester is seen singing the "AIM Song," an intertribal song of honor associated with the American Indian Movement, as he beats a drum.

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The man's name is Nathan Phillips, per Indian Country Today. He's the former director of the Native Youth Alliance and is also a veteran who holds an annual ceremony in the Arlington National Cemetery to honor other Native American vets. The teen is Nick Sandmann, a junior at Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky. 

In a nearly two-hour YouTube video filmed by a Black Hebrew Israelite demonstrator, Phillips can be seen walking towards the high-schoolers, who stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, around the one-hour-12-minute mark. 

Phillips says he walked in between the teens and the Black Hebrew Israelites to diffuse the tension, according to the New York Times. (The Black Hebrew Israelites had been insulting both the Native Americans and the teens, and the teens began jumping and singing what sounds like a school fight song, as seen in the video. One teen took off his shirt as he encouraged others to shout louder.)

“They were in the process of attacking these four black individuals,” Phillips told the Detroit Free Press. “I was there and I was witnessing all of this ... As this kept on going on and escalating, it just got to a point where you do something or you walk away, you know? You see something that is wrong and you’re faced with that choice of right or wrong. “

But as Phillips sang and beat his drum, the teens, who outnumbered both the Native American and Hebrew Israelite activists, continued to jump, shout, and laugh, seemingly mocking Phillips. 

The striking moment was captured from several different angles and shared on social media to show just how large and overpowering the teens were. In several videos, Phillips can be seen facing a smiling Sandmann.

For his part, Sandmann said his actions had been mischaracterized in a statement to CNN's Jake Tapper. He said he was smiling in order to show that he wasn't "going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation." 

“I never interacted with this protester. I did not speak to him. I did not make any hand gestures or other aggressive moves,” Sandmann wrote.

“He locked eyes with me and approached me, coming within inches of my face. He played his drum the entire time he was in my face."

After the unexpected commotion died down a bit, Phillips explained in an interview captured on Instagram that when he was singing, he heard the Trump supporters saying, "build that wall, build that wall."

"This is Indigenous Land you know, we're not supposed to have walls here. We never did for millenniums before anybody else came here we never had walls. We never had a prison. We always took care of our elders and took care of our children. We always provided for them, we taught them right from wrong," Phillips said before deeply exhaling.

"I wish I could see that energy in that young mass of young men down there. To put that energy into making this country really great — helping those that are hungry..." he went on.

In the video, several of the boys can be seen wearing apparel from Covington Catholic School in Park Hills, Kentucky, and while it's not confirmed all of the people involved attend the school, a majority of Covington's social channels were either set to private or deleted completely sometime after the video surfaced.

Image: screengrab/twitter

Though Covington Catholic's website remains up and running, at the time of writing the school's phone number was disabled. The Wikipedia entry for the school also seems to have been changed on Saturday morning to read "Covington Catholic White Male Entitlement High School."

Image: screengrab/wikipedia

The Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School issued a joint statement on the school's website following the incident. 

Many who saw the incident when it first surfaced online were appalled by the behavior of the young men and publicly voiced their concern on Twitter. They also sent love and support to Native Americans everywhere. (Though actions speak louder than words.) But several supporters of the teens say their actions were taken out of context, with headlines about a mob of teens fanning the flames of a complicated situation. (Mashable initially reported the teens had "ambushed" the protesters and that has been corrected in this post.) 

Though this incident is gaining a remarkable amount of attention on social media, it's unfortunately not the first time Phillips has found himself taunted by a group of students. 

Back in 2015, Phillips was reportedly mocked, shouted at, and hit with a beer can by students at Eastern Michigan University who were dressed in stereotypical Native American attire for a themed party.

The Indigenous Peoples March came only days after Donald Trump took yet another racist shot at Senator Elizabeth Warren, whom he often calls Pocahontas, by callously referencing the Wounded Knee Massacre, at which hundreds of Native Americans were killed, in one of his tweets.

He's been publicly disrespectful to Native Americans for years, and it's clear from the young men who crashed this march that his actions and personal views resonate with supporters.

Now seems like as good a time as ever for everyone, including these teens and the president, to learn more about indigenous land, communities, and how to be a better ally to Native Americans.

UPDATED Jan. 20, 2019, 6:05 p.m. with the joint statement from the Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School.

UPDATED Jan. 20, 2019, 7:06 p.m. with a more complete video account of what happened.

UPDATED Jan. 20, 2019, 11:18 p.m. with the statement from Nick Sandmann, the student from Covington Catholic High School, who was seen standing face-to-face with Phillips.

UPDATED Jan. 21, 2019, 12:29 p.m. with clarifications throughout looping in new information added earlier.

UPDATED Jan. 22, 2019, 6:25 p.m. to remove a tweet and description that Nathan Phillips is a Vietnam War veteran. Phillips served in the Marines but was not deployed to Vietnam. 

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