Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan this week denounced the American flag before hundreds of people at the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C.
“I don’t know what the hell the fight is about over the Confederate flag. We need to put the American flag down because we’ve had as much hell under that as the Confederate flag,” Farrakhan said, according to WMAL.
“Under that flag, we’ve fought in wars, under that flag, and came back and were hung and murdered and brutalized, under that flag,” he said.
In the wake of the shooting at the Emanuel AME church in Charleston, where nine unarmed black church members were murdered, Farrakhan said white people “don’t give a damn about them nine.”
“So every time we die, they give us a symbol, no substance,” he said.
He then compared pulling down a flag to pulling down one’s pants in reference to states’ actions to remove the Confederate flag.
“Pull a flag down, and you’re supposed to go away satisfied? See you don’t know what justice looks like …” he said. “We want justice under that flag or what the hell is the use of us paying allegiance to a flag under which we get no justice?”
Farrakhan also spoke about a rally in October that will take place on the Mall to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March, the Washington Post reported.
