Video cameras captured a heated exchange at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati between a group of angry whites and black activists at a press conference Wednesday. A group of ministers in Cincinnati organized the event, using the upcoming Major League Baseball All-Star Game in their city to call on MLB to join the fight against racial injustice.
As Cincinnati.com reports, the press conference quickly degenerated into a verbal brawl when several furious white people began voicing their anger.
The report says that Robert Ransdell did “most of the shouting.” He’s identified as a member of the National Alliance, a white supremacist organization.
“How many decades are we going to accommodate the behavior of black criminals?” he shouted at Bishop Bobby Hilton, senior pastor of World of Deliverance Ministries in Forest Park, Ohio.
Hilton responded: “If you can’t have an intelligent conversation, move on. Let’s come together. Can we come together?”
The Rev. Damon Lynch, pastor of New Prospect Baptist Church in Cincinnati, said that the protesters were like the Southern segregationists decades ago. “What we saw today is nothing new,” he told Cincinnati.com. “It’s what we’ve seen in the civil rights movement from the beginning: angry white people espousing their views, trying to stop us from moving forward.”
Hilton said that his group was not at the baseball stadium to demand a boycott of the All-Star Game. “We’re asking Major League Baseball to stand with us,” he said.
Lynch noted that major-league sports have taken a stance on LGBT rights, domestic violence and a number of other issues. He’s urging MLB to use its voice and stand with #BlackLivesMatter.
Read more at Cincinnati.com.