Georgia Bulldogs
Georgia Bulldogs

Ole Miss players kneel during anthem before Georgia game

By The Associated Press
Feb 23, 2019

Eight Ole Miss men's basketball players knelt during the national anthem Saturday afternoon in response to a Confederacy rally near the arena.

Minutes before the Rebels’ game against Georgia, both teams formed lines for the anthem. As soon as "The Star-Spangled Banner" began, six players from the Rebels took a knee and bowed. Toward the end of the anthem, two teammates joined them.

The Confederacy demonstration was led by out-of-state protesters a few hundred feet from the arena.

In the aftermath of violence at a similar rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, the Oxford community has been on alert.

Various student groups held counter-protests on campus Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, one began on the city square and ended at the Confederate monument in the heart of the Ole Miss campus.

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