A small group of Black Lives Matter protesters line up in front of a white picket fence on 4th Street in Lansingburgh, a neighborhood in Troy, on June 30. The pastel sky is gradually fading and the scene is tense with anticipation.
The protesters are lined up outside an innocuous-looking brick church. A sign in gothic lettering reads “Grace Baptist Church.” The church’s service hours are listed, and though the protesters are here on a Monday, there are no Monday hours written on the sign.
This is a special occasion.
What will happen tonight will make national news. It is still being talked about by conservatives, weeks later. Right-wing figures like Dinesh D’Souza, Nigel Farage, and Mike Cernovich all will retweet videos of tonight’s confrontations with predictably incendiary commentary. An unflattering picture has been painted by these commentators of the protesters. The protesters now are, to many conservatives across the world, seen as boorish, uncivilized creatures, who entered a church in order to bother and intimidate the congregants within.
To be fair, the protest did get rowdy on Sunday morning. There was a tussle between protesters and congregants, although footage from the scene doesn’t paint a clear picture of who instigated the altercation.
And to be fairer, the protesters who entered the church on Monday night were rude. They held up fists of solidarity while John Koletas and another preacher spoke, interrupted the sermon with comments, and as they left, spat insults at the congregants as they left the service.
But the narrative circulated by the right-wing doesn’t tell the full story.
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