Update: Responding to an email from Bluestem Prairie, reporter Josie Gerezek called Bill Schulz about his statement, and the story now reads:
At the rally, Schulz said he lived in California during his time in the Navy, through the ’60s and early ’70s. In a later phone call, Schulz said he had actually served in the ’50s and ’60s. “I saw what happened when the movement for equality among blacks turned into something violent, with the Black Panthers in the San Francisco and Oakland area, and I saw those people out on the street and the crimes they were committing, the murders they were committing,” Schulz said. “Now, I see that coming again.”
Schulz said after his 13 years in the service, he visited Mississippi and Alabama.
“Martin Luther King and a number of other black leaders were holding the freedom parades, and I marched with them a few times,” Schulz said, adding he’d served with men who were black, white and Hispanic. “I have no problem with race.”
This too is problematic, since the Black Panther Party was formed in October 1966, after the 1965 Selma to Montgomery Marches to secure the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the June 1966 March Against Fear.
Schulz could not have seen "those people out on the street and the crimes they were committing, the murders they were committing" while serving in the Navy in California if he marched with King in Alabama and Mississippi after his service with the Navy ended. While the Panthers legally carried guns from their founding, no fatal shots were fired until late October 1967.
Either way, Schulz is trying to have it both ways--that he was both a participant in the great civil rights marches in 1965 and 1966 after leaving the Navy and a witness to '"those people out on the street and the crimes they were committing, the murders they were committing" while serving in the Navy in California.
If he meant to say that he marched with King, then didn't like the Panthers, he simply should have said that, without using his naval service to place himself as an eyewitness to a history he probably just watched on television.
Moreover: Bluestem has yet to meet a veteran who doesn't know when she or he served our country. Schulz is a regular guest columnist at the newspaper, so apparently their regular guest columnist's shifting life history matters. Black History? Not so much. [End update]
It is a fact universally acknowledged that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis by James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968.
Unless you're Fergus Falls conservative activist Bill Schulz, who marched with King after leaving the Navy in the 1970s, Fergus Falls Daily Journal staff writer Josie Gerezek reported Thursday in Fergus Falls residents attend rally in support of local law enforcement:
Rally organizer Bill Schulz, who Fergus Falls Police Chief Kile Bergren describes as a long-time supporter of law enforcement, said what motivated him were the targeted shootings of police officers like those in Dallas and Baton Rouge. The I-94 Black Lives Matter protests in the Twin Cities, too, were a call to action, he said.
“That is anarchy,” Schulz said of the protests, which took over major interstates resulting in nearly two dozen officers being injured. “It may be free speech, but it’s promoting anarchy.”
Schulz said it was time local police knew “the sentiments of the people” were with them.
Schulz said he lived in California during his time in the Navy, through the ’60s and the early ’70s. “I saw what happened when the movement for equality among blacks turned into something violent, with the Black Panthers in the San Francisco and Oakland area, and I saw those people out on the street and the crimes they were committing, the murders they were committing,” Schulz said. “Now, I see that coming again.”
Schulz said after his 13 years in the service, he visited Mississippi and Alabama.
“Martin Luther King and a number of other black leaders were holding the freedom parades, and I marched with them a few times,” Schulz said, adding he’d served with men who were black, white and Hispanic. “I have no problem with race.”
While Schulz may or may nor have a problem with race, he does appear to have a problem with timelines, given that King was no longer living when Schulz visited Mississippi and Alabama in the 1970s, after his 13 years in the service.
Shame on the Fergus Falls Journal for running this copy.
Here's the screenshot of the original copy online:
The paper seems to be a bit uncritical about reporting on Black American history, as we noted in April in Fergus Area College Foundation sponsored speaker who said white men are target of racism.
Photo: Civil rights leader Andrew Young (L) and others standing on balcony of the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968, pointing in direction of the shots after the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who is lying at their feet. Photo by Joseph Louw.
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