Former KKK member appearance at HBCU sparks protest

Protesters clashed with police at Dillard University when former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke, who’s running for U.S. Senate, was speaking at the university.

Police pepper sprayed protesters as they tried to squeeze through the doors of the debate venue on the New Orleans campus of historically black Dillard University, according to a university spokesman.

“I can taste the pepper spray,” Nick Reimann, a writer for Loyola University’s student newspaper, tweeted.

Six people, including one student, were arrested for obstructing traffic, the spokesman said.

Outside, protesters carried signs decorated with swastikas declaring “No hate,” and “We have not forgotten.”

Dillard students weren’t too happy about the debate in which David Duk, a former member of the hate group KKK, would be on a campus of a historically black university that was created to fight against social ills.

In particular, Dillard student group, Socially Engaged Dillard University Students, had vowed to protest the debate after the school denied its request to exclude Duke.

“His presence on our campus is not welcome, and overtly subjects the entire student body to safety risks and social ridicule,” SEDUS representatives wrote in an open letter, according to CNN affiliate WGNO.

Spectators  who were banned from the debate, outside students chanted: “No Duke. No K-K-K, no fascist USA,” and tried to force their way into the auditorium, the Times-Picayune reported.

I can taste the pepper spray. Protestors and police clash at #Dillard #senatedebate pic.twitter.com/KLRtiacWGq

— Nick Reimann (@nicksreimann) November 3, 2016

Raycom released a statement before the debate saying that the contest would be “conducted on a closed set,” per their rules. Journalists were allowed to watch from a separate room and it was broadcasted live locally.

Former famed KKK member David Duke called the demonstrators “Black Lives Matter radicals.”

According to CNN:

In his closing argument, Duke said: “The Black Lives Matter movement calls for the murder of police officers and calls for the death of police.” He offered himself as a counter to this sentiment: a candidate who would “defend the police” and fight for white people, who “also deserve human rights.”

It seems as though Dillard students protest and anger was very reasonable. Here you have a former KKK member, speaking ill of African-Americans on their historically black campus.

To bring a sigh of relief, according to the polls, David Duke chances of winning are very slim to none.

The only question I have for Dillard University adminstration is, why?