Army vet who knelt before Trump shares why, you know, protests are important
NFL teams and celebrities have been taking a knee all week long, but a military veteran's kneel on Wednesday caught everyone's attention.
Marvin Boatright kneeled while carrying a folded American flag and wearing his American Legion cap as President Trump drove by in his motorcade on the way to a speech on tax reform in Indiana.
The moment was captured in a photo and has been circulating online since the patriotic protest.
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HuffPost spoke with Boatright about his decision to take a knee in front of the president. He told the news outlet he was sending a message that you can love this country and be against social injustice — at the same time. "You don’t have to separate one from the other," he said.
The protest started last year, with former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality toward black people. Last week, when Trump said, "Get that son of a bitch off the field right now," the protest began to spread throughout the NFL and beyond.
Boatright explained that Trump's harsh language had prompted him to kneel with the flag. "We love this flag. But we also love life and liberty for all humanity," said the army vet, who served from 1974 to 1976.
Protesting is patriotic, as Boatright clearly showed.
Topics Activism Donald Trump Politics
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
