Protesters interrupted Black Republican gubernatorial nominee Lisa Demuth during a Minnesota GOP fundraising dinner Friday (October 9), displaying a sign referencing the Ku Klux Klan.
The protest occurred during the Minnesota Republican Party’s annual Lincoln-Reagan Dinner in Eagan, according to CBS News. Demuth, the Minnesota House speaker and the first Black woman to hold the position, is the Republican nominee for governor.
Video of the protest shows a white woman holding a sign reading “RepubliKKKan Party.”
As she is escorted out, she can be heard shouting, “You are all shameful! You love Donald Trump!” while attendees chant back, “Lisa! Lisa!”
The Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate advocacy organization, and Climate Defiance, a climate activist group known for protests targeting political leaders and institutions, claimed responsibility for the disruption, CBS reported.
“The KKK’s legacy of racial violence and hierarchy is alive and well within the GOP,” a spokesperson for the groups said in a statement, according to CBS Minnesota. “We disrupted this fundraiser because we refuse to give a moment’s peace to the people bankrolling racial violence.”
Minnesota Republican Party Chair Alex Plechash condemned the demonstration, saying protesters used “a symbol of racial terror at a Black woman leader, at a dinner named for the president who ended slavery.”
KSTP-TV anchor Lindsey Brown shared video of the incident on social media, reporting that a source told her protesters purchased tickets costing between $200 and $250 each despite off-duty police officers and private security at the event.
Brown also reported that one protester reached the podium while Demuth was speaking.
Plechash called on Democratic leaders, including gubernatorial candidate Amy Klobuchar and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, to condemn the protest.
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