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 * File:Front of march procession.jpg|thumb|Front of march procession

The first Indigenous Peoples March was a political demonstration on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on January 18, 2019. The event included speeches, prayers, songs, and dance, and was intended to draw attention to global injustices against indigenous peoples. After prayers outside the Building of Interior Affairs, the marchers proceeded along Constitution Avenue and ended at Henry Bacon Park, north of the Lincoln Memorial. Organizers expected a crowd of about 10,000 people. Simultaneous "solidarity" marches were scheduled in a dozen other locations, such as Gallup, New Mexico and Bemidji, Minnesota in the United States and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in Canada.

In the late afternoon, when the two rallies taking place that day at the National Mall had ended, an incident occurred at the Lincoln Memorial involving four Black Hebrew Israelites men, Covington Catholic High School teenage students on an annual school trip to attend the March for Life rally, and Native American marchers. The first short videos of the encounter that were uploaded to Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, received millions of views. A photo of one of the students wearing a MAGA hat standing face-to-face with Nathan Phillips as he played a ceremonial drum, was published in numerous mass media outlets. The first social media videos clips were short and focused on this moment, leading to harsh criticism of the high school students, who some described as mocking and harassing the elder. Some people affiliated with the March described the boys as appearing threatening due to their numbers, actions, and the "Make America Great Again" caps and clothing that some wore. By January 20, longer videos had been uploaded, revealing how the intense encounter had unfolded. Phillips clarified that it was he who had approached the crowd of students, in what he said was an attempt to defuse what Phillips perceived to be a brewing conflict between the students and a third group of four men who identified as Black Hebrew Israelites who had been taunting the students.

Over the next several days statements from a spokesperson for the March, an attorney for the Lakota People's Law Project, and from the student seen in the video standing face to face with Phillips, and other officials, offered different perspectives on the incident. In the wake of the widespread sharing of more detailed video clips, media analyses of the videos, and statements, public opinion became polarized, with some saying the students were completely absolved of all wrongdoing and others saying the students were disrespectful of a Native American elder on a day that should have been a celebration of the first Indigenous Peoples March.

Context
The march was intended to build on the momentum of the 2016–2017 Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests, which had drawn attention to concerns of indigenous peoples globally. The organizers of the "grassroots effort" included indigenous leaders, tribes, and celebrities, many of whom were part of the Indigenous Peoples Movement.

Program
The event began at 8:00 AM outside the Building of Interior Affairs, which runs the Bureau of Indian Affairs, with opening songs, prayers, and smudging with sage, a ceremony for cleansing "our eyes to see clearly, our mouths to speak the truth, and our hearts to spread love." The marchers who chanted, sang, and drummed then walked towards the Lincoln Memorial from Constitution Avenue to 17th St. NW and through the National Mall. Featured guests who spoke beside the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool included Ruth Buffalo, a North Dakota Representative and member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, and Paulette Jordan, who had served on the Tribal Council, sovereign government of the Coeur d'Alene people, and as a member of the Idaho House of Representatives from 2014 until 2018 when she ran for governor of Idaho. Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids, the first Native American women elected to Congress, spoke at the March. Haaland is a representative for New Mexico and a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe; Davids is a Representative for Kansas, and a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation.

Indigenous elders continued to speak, sing, and drum even as a concurrent March for Life rally "began to overlap the Indigenous Peoples Movement among the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial." The day ended with a round dance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, with chants of "We are still here."

Issues
The March was intended to raise public awareness of issues that affect indigenous people worldwide, such as missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW), climate change, the 2018–19 United States federal government shutdown, "voter suppression in Indian Country", families divided by walls and borders, human trafficking including sex trafficking, police brutality against Native Americans, "mistreatment of Indigenous peoples at the borders", and the need to protect indigenous lands. Marchers carried signs that said, "Water is Life" (a theme of the Indigenous movement), "There is no O'Odham word for wall", and "We will not be silenced." They also "came to bring awareness of the ill-effects of oil pipelines running through Indian Country."

Participants
Organizers expected about 10,000 people would attend. Native News Online said that "thousands of American Indians, Alaska Natives and other indigenous peoples from various parts of the world" attended the march.

A delegation representing eight tribes from Oklahoma included Reverend David Wilson, a member of the Choctaw Nation and the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference superintendent. Wilson said that half of his group were young American Indian Methodists in the group ranging in age from 20 to 32 "who are more inclined to work on issues of social justice, more so than other generations.... Social justice is in their DNA". Women carrying a banner calling attention to missing Indigenous women wore red, and one woman carried a red dress, a symbol of the missing Indigenous women.

Funding
Organizers raised funds through crowdfunding via Facebook, emails, GoFundMe, and other sites.

Incident
An incident took place which a January 20, 2019 New York Times article described as an "explosive convergence of race, religion and ideological beliefs — against a national backdrop of political tension... The encounter became the latest touch point for racial and political tensions in America, with diverging views about what really had happened."

The incident involved some students who were part of a larger group of more than 200 teenage boys from the private, all-male Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. They had traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the pro-life March for Life rally, and were gathering at their meeting point on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for their return trip home. They along with Omaha people elder, activist and former US Marine (in multiple articles at first erroneously identified as a Vietnam War veteran) 64-year-old Nathan Phillips, who was with a small group of people from the Indigenous Peoples March, became the center of a media storm.

CNN national correspondent Sara Sidner analyzed a video of the entire incident. She highlighted that four men who identified themselves as Black Hebrew Israelites, who were standing near the Lincoln Memorial, began "taunting ... people of all colors, other black visitors, natives, and a Catholic priest" shortly after the end of the Indigenous Peoples March, and before Phillips and the students arrived on the scene. As the students began to arrive to wait for their bus for their return trip to Kentucky, the Black men began to shout directly at them. According to witnesses and video subsequently appearing on social media, the Black Hebrew Israelite men shouted racially combative insults and slurs at both the Native Americans and the high school students. They called the students "a bunch of incest babies", future "school shooters," and "dirty ass little crackers", called African American students the N-word, and said "you give faggots rights". Many students reacted by saying things such as "woah" and "easy". The Black Hebrew Israelites also called a passing Black man who tried to disagree with them a "coon," told Indian activists that the word Indian means "savage," and said to a woman who had stopped to argue with them: "Where’s your husband? Bring your husband. Let me speak to him."

More students arrived, and in response to the taunts by the Black Hebrew Israelite men, the students performed school spirit chants, including the Māori haka. One of the Native Americans who joined Phillips in approaching the teenagers said that he felt "the students were mocking the dance."

After Phillips listened to the chants for what he said was about ten minutes, in what he later said he viewed as a confrontation that had reached a "boiling point", he walked up to the teenage students while beating a drum and chanting. He said he was intending to defuse what he saw as the escalating tension. Sidner said that two minutes after one of the students took off his shirt to lead the haka, the "drum beat of Phillips and another Native American drummer [was audible] in the video", and they were chanting the AIM Song, a Native American intertribal song. Sidner said that while some of the students danced to Phillips' drum beat and chanted along with him for awhile, they were not "enjoying each other's company". Soon, Phillips, was tightly "encircled" by about 30 students, "many of them white and wearing apparel bearing the slogan of President Trump". Phillips continued to beat his ceremonial drum for nearly two minutes inches away from the face of a "boy wearing a red 'Make America Great Again' in front of him, [who was] staring at Philips" with what some viewed as a smirk on his face. The boy later explained that he smiled because he wanted Phillips to know "that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation."

Initial
On January 18, videos of the encounter were widely shared through social media, including on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Guam resident Kaya Taitano, a student at the University of the District of Columbia, who had attended the Indigenous Peoples March and was with the small group who were still near the Memorial late afternoon when the incident took place, had captured the original video later published by CNN of "a smiling young man in a red Make America Great Again hat standing directly in front of Phillips while other students could be seen laughing, jumping around and making fun of Phillips' chants. Taitano uploaded this video to Instagram at 7:33 p.m. Originally CNN Business reporter Donie O'Sullivan had erroneously reported that a video posted on Twitter by 2020fight under the title, "This MAGA loser gleefully bothering a Native American protester at the Indigenous Peoples March", which had 2.5 million views by January 22, was the one that "helped frame the news cycle". In a January 23 article, CNN had clarified that the video posted by @2020fight was actually a repost of Taitana's original video. O'Sullivan had also cited Molly McKew, an information warfare researcher, who said @2020fight's tweet had been boosted by a network of anonymous Twitter accounts to amplify the story. One YouTube video filmed by KC Noland reaching two million viewers in two hours Saturday morning, January 19, and almost four and a half million by January 21. Taitano said that she heard the students chant "build that wall" and "Trump 2020", but these chants were not audible in videos reviewed by CNN. On January 21, Louisville-based RunSwitch Public Relations, a company that specializes in crisis management, whose services had been retained by the Sandmann family, released a statement on behalf of their son, denying that the students chanted this. These videos had shown the start of the confrontation between Phillips and the students, but did not show the group of Black Hebrew Israelites and their insults to those around them that preceded the incident.

Over the course of January 18 and 19, there was a large backlash against the school and the students. In a brief interview on Twitter, Phillips responded to the alleged chants of "build that wall" by saying "This is Indigenous Land you know, we're not supposed to have walls here. We never did for millenniums before anybody else came here we never had walls. We never had a prison. We always took care of our elders and took care of our children. We always provided for them, we taught them right from wrong. I wish I could see that energy in that young mass of young men down there. To put that energy into making this country really great — helping those that are hungry..." Phillips also alleged that the students had made racist comments throughout the day. Some others affiliated with the March described the group of boys surrounding Phillips as appearing threatening due to their numbers, actions, and "Make America Great Again" attire.

Shortly after the event took place, the Covington Catholic communications director released a statement expressing regret that the event had happened. In a joint statement on January 19, the Diocese of Covington and the Covington Catholic High School extended apologies to Phillips, condemned the students' behavior, and said that after they reviewed the situation they would "take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion."

A PR firm representing the student who was filmed standing closely facing Phillips released a statement in which he said misinformation and "outright lies" were being spread about the incident. According to him, the situation began when a group of African-American protesters directed insults at the students, and the students responded with school spirit chants. The student said that he was confused when Phillips and other Native Americans subsequently approached him and the other students, and that he tried to remain calm to avoid trouble. He said he "did not witness or hear any students chant 'build that wall' or anything hateful or racist at any time."

Ruth Buffalo said the students' disrespect of what was meant to have been a "celebration of all cultures" saddened her. She added, "The behaviour shown in that video is just a snapshot of what Indigenous people have faced and are continuing to face." Buffalo suggested "some kind of meeting with the students to provide education on issues facing Native Americans." House Representative Haaland wrote, "The students' display of blatant hate, disrespect, and intolerance is a signal of how common decency has decayed under this administration. Heartbreaking." Alison Lundergan Grimes, Secretary of State of Kentucky, described the scene as "horrific" and said the students' actions did not reflect Kentucky's values. She wrote, "I refuse to shame these children. Instead I turn to the adults that are teaching them and those that are silently letting others promote this behavior. This is not the Kentucky I know and love. We can do better and it starts with better leadership."

Following full video release
A longer hour-and-a-half-long video was made public on January 20. The longer video revealed more information about the incident, including the 4 Hebrew Israelites and their taunting of the students, and Phillips' walking up to the teenage students. The longer video gave a different picture of the students' role in the activities than the original minute-long videos suggested. This created confusion in the ongoing reporting: While some still believed the students were still partially responsible for poor attitudes, others felt that the students were maligned by the initial coverage, and that several other actors in the event were to blame for the net result.

The organizers of the March for Life initially released a statement criticizing the students' "reprehensible" behavior. But the organizers rescinded the statement on January 20, saying "It is clear from new footage and additional accounts that there is more to this story than the original video captured."

Chase Iron Eyes, a spokesperson for the March and an attorney for the Lakota People's Law Project, who witnessed the incident, said that "Conservative people are fearful now—with the election to congress of our first two Native American women, Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids, and so many other powerful women... But yesterday the world saw, whether it was live media or social media, the fight ahead of us can be won—if we are united." Another march organizer, Nathalie Farfan, said, "The good news is, that connection to the sacred may have resonated with some of the Catholic youths. What is not being shown on [the KC Noland February 18 video] is that the same youth and a few others became emotional because of the power, resilience and love we inherently carry in our DNA. Our day on those steps ended with a round dance, while we chanted, 'We are still here.'"

A January 21 New York Times report from Covington said that the local community had focused its energy on "absolving the students of any wrongdoing" in the incident.

Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie wrote that after watching videos from four different cameras he believed the media had misrepresented the incident, and that "In the context of everything that was going on (which the media hasn’t shown) the parents and mentors of these boys should be proud, not ashamed, of their kids’ behavior."

Several commenters on the incident faced backfire. Vulture writer Erik Abriss, who tweeted that he wanted the Covington students and their parents to die, was fired from his second job at INE Entertainment. Comedian Ben Hoffman came under fire for inciting violence against the involved student. Film producer Jack Morrissey, who had suggested the "MAGAkids go screaming, hats first, into the woodchipper," later apologized for his "fast, profoundly stupid tweet". Among others who deleted their tweets about the incident were author and journalist Jeet Heer (who said the students were "racist"), journalist Kara Swisher, attorney and political commentator Bakari Sellers (who tweeted a picture of the student, stating: "He is a deplorable. Some ppl can also be punched in the face."), and strategist and political commentator Ana Navarro (who denounced the "asswipe" parents for the students' "bigotry" and "racism"). Others who retracted initial comments include CNN's Jake Tapper, actor Ron Perlman and cartoonist Scott Adams.

Political activist and journalist CJ Pearson started a '#VerifiedBullies database' – the term referring to the blue verified Twitter-user checkmark – to chronicle the online attacks on the Covington students by 'verified' journalists and commentators.

On January 22, shortly after tweeting it, Kathy Griffin deleted a Twitter message in which she accused Covington basketball players making a 3-pointer sign of "throwing up the new nazi sign". The same day Jim Carrey tweeted an art work labeling the Covington students as 'baby snakes'.

Media coverage
The Washington Post described the Indigenous Peoples March as "meaningful", and an example of how Native Americans will not be silenced. The article drew attention to Donald Trump's joking about the Wounded Knee Massacre to mock the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren. The Post also wrote in a separate article that the "tense encounter in Washington prompted outrage".