An anti-Trump organization linked to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is leading the “National School Walkout” on March 14, in which millions of children will be instructed to demonstrate against guns.
The “Women’s March” organization, which conducted nationwide “pink pussyhat” protests the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, is leading the National School Walkout in coordination with the national Parent Teacher Association (PTA).
Through the PTA, many local school districts will be participating in the protest, and teachers and administrators will be encouraging students to “walk out” of class to demonstrate for gun control.
The Women’s March is not only an avowedly political organization, but it is also led by radicals such as co-president Tamika D. Mallory, who attended an antisemitic speech by Farrakhan last weekend in which he specifically praised her from the podium. Farrakhan declared that “the Jews have control over agencies of government,” among other inflammatory remarks.
It was not the first time Mallory had heard him speak, either: she has repeatedly attended his events. On one occasion, she posed with him for a photograph and referred to him as the “GOAT” (“greatest of all time”).
When confronted about her association with Farrakhan, Mallory merely made antisemitic statements of her own, attacking the “enemies of Jesus.”
Other Women’s March leaders have also expressed admiration for Farrakhan; co-chair Carmen Perez called him an “inspirational individual.”
And co-chair Linda Sarsour, an anti-Israel firebrand who called for a “jihad” against the Trump administration, and who says women who protest radical Islam should have their vaginas taken away, also praised Farrakhan in the past.
Mallory, Perez, and Sarsour refuse to distance the Women’s March from Farrakhan, which has earned them rebukes from the Anti-Defamation League as well as “progressive” Jewish groups, who note the Women’s March would never tolerate the kind of bigotry against any other group that it is willing to defend when Farrakhan attacks Jews.
And yet the Farrakhan-linked Women’s March will be leading millions of children out of the classroom and into the streets, thanks to the PTA and local school boards across the country. The Sacramento Bee even acknowledges the role of the Women’s March in leading the March 14 protest, but fails to note the group’s radical political ties.
Farrakhan has long championed the idea of mass marches as a way of pushing his radical agenda, most famously in the “Million Man March,” which took place in 1995. Then as now, left-wing leaders were willing to overlook his antisemitism. But Farrakhan was never able to persuade public schools to send their students to participate.
Thanks to the participation of the PTA, to the acquiescence of local school boards, and to the media’s lack of interest in the radical ties of the Women’s March, Farrakhan has succeeded in recruiting millions of unsuspecting school children, and their parents, to his cause.
The March 14 walkout, which coincides with the PTA’s national legislative conference March 13-15, will be just the first of three major national gun control marches to be held in the coming weeks. The Bee notes: “March for Our Lives, a national march on Washington, D.C., is set for March 24 and another National School Walkout Day is scheduled for April 20, the 19th anniversary of the shooting at Columbine High School.”
Karen Townsend, writing at HotAir.com, notes that the Democratic Party is also using the protests to motivate get-out-the-vote efforts in 2018.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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