On January 18, Nathan Phillips, a Native American Marine veteran and tribal elder, was faced with a group of white students from Covington Catholic High School in Washington D.C. It was at the end of the Indigenous Peoples’ Day March and Rally.
A video that shows the white students facing down Phillips went viral online. Nick Sandmann, the student who is seen in the video, later issued a statement claiming they were not taunting nor intimidating the Native American demonstrators. He stated that they had actually started school spirit chants after being shouted at by a separate group from the Black Hebrew Israelites.