Beck Rally Participant Demands: ‘Protect White Cracker Babies’

A participant in Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally wore a T-shirt that read "Protect White Cracker Babies."
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A Cleveland man wore a t-shirt to Glenn Beck’s rally on Saturday with the slogan “Protect White Cracker Babies.”

First, some context. A member of the New Black Panther Party was captured on video as he stood outside a polling place in Philadelphia on election day 2008 with a nightstick. The Bush Justice Department filed a civil case against the man, another New Black Panther Party member and the national party with voter intimidation. Once Obama took office, the Justice Department decided there wasn’t enough evidence to merit the case against the other Black Panther and the national party, but obtained an injunction against the man carrying the nightstick. The conservative-dominated Civil Rights Commission is now investigating and has asked Congress to give it permission to sue DOJ.

Before the incident took place, National Geographic had shot a documentary on the New Black Panther Party which included footage of Samir Shabazz — the man holding the nightstick — using extreme rhetoric at an event on South Street in Philadelphia. “You’re gonna have to kill a cracker. You’re gonna have to kill some of their babies.”

Glenn Beck highlighted the controversy on his show and tied it to the National Geographic video. “Well maybe it was a little favor for all of the support the New Panthers – the New Black Panthers – that they gave Barack Obama during the election,” Beck said.

TPM asked the man about his t-shirt.

“The Black Panther Party is now calling for the murder of white ‘cracker’ babies,” he said. “From what I recall, listening to the news and watching the news, even though the mainstream media seem to avoid it, the Black Panther Party, which came out of the civil rights movement, is now calling for the murder of white cracker babies. Enough said, that’s what the shirt is telling you. Protect them.”

We asked if he thought this was a massive problem or just a small fringe group.

“I don’t know, how many tens of thousands of street drug thugs listened to that message?” he asked. “I think they have hate crime legislation, or hate speech, isn’t that the tune of the day? Depending on who says it maybe.”

Video embedded below.

A few members of the New Black Panther Party — whose president said that the Beck rally shouldn’t be allowed to happen — showed up near the National Mall on Saturday and sold copies of their newspaper.

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