WATCH: Elizabeth Warren Left Speechless As Black Protestors Demand School Choice
While delivering a speech at Clark Atlanta University, protestors disrupted 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren.
During this speech, Warren was honoring the legacy of black women protesters.
“The fighters I want to talk about tonight are Black women,” Warren said. “As a white woman, I will never fully understand the discrimination, pain, and harm that black Americans have experienced just because of the color of their skin.”
30 minutes into the speech, a group of protesters crashed the speech.
The group started loudly yelling “Our voice, our choice!”
However, Warren’s supporters quickly came to her defense by chanting her name louder in order to drown out the protester’s chants.
Protesting happening now at @ewarren’s rally
Warren supports tried to drown out the protests by chanting pic.twitter.com/P0ypW7280X
— Rebecca Morin (@RebeccaMorin_) November 21, 2019
The Massachusetts senator tried to carry out her speech despite the protesters making noise.
“I’m not here tonight to tell you about a painful history that Black Americans experienced and know all too well. I am here today for a different reason,” she added while the hecklers continued disrupting her speech.
The protesters started to chat again, with the crowd responding again with chants of “Warren, Warren!”
Warren tried to calm down the protesters saying “Alright.”
But that was not enough to keep the protestors from chanting.
The crowd then made a stronger response “Let her speak! Let her speak!”
Warren made another attempt to continue her speech, saying “We’re good.”
The Massachusetts senator was able to continue her speech for the time being.
However, the protesters were never satisfied, which prompted Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley to intervene on Warren’s behalf.
“I want to say something – no one is here to quiet you, least of all this black woman who knows what it is when people try to put me in a corner and tell me to be silent,” Pressley stated. “You are welcome here.”
Pressley continued:
The senator is here to talk about the contributions fighters like you have made to history. So, in this moment … there are many people who do not know this story, because we have been rendered a historical footnote in history. So, I am going to appeal to you to not dishonor that history. We are grateful for your activism and your voice, and we would love to convene after this about the issue that you are here to stoke our consciousness about. But when these women have been ignored this long, this is their moment and we are going to hear the story.
The speech continued.
The group who interrupted Warren’s speech was the Powerful Parent Network.
PPN is an activist group that represents the interests of low-income and minority parents across America.
In a news release, the group stated that they attended Warren’s speech in order to send her a “message that she has it wrong about school choice and education policy.”
Elizabeth Warren is the presidential candidate who has taken the strongest stance against choice and high quality public charter schools,” the group said. “But these parents will send a clear message: black and brown families want more educational choice and more quality public schools– not less!”
BLP has reported how Warren has faced increasing pressure from school choice proponents about her opposition to charter schools.
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