U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham is pushing back at statement made by a fellow Republican congressman from Virginia who blames outsiders from Louisiana, and other states, for the weekend violence at a white supremacists’ rally in Charlottesville.
The “Unite the Right” rally attracted neo-Nazis, other hate groups, and members of the Ku Klux Klan—including David Duke, a former high profile Grand Wizard who was once elected to the Louisiana Legislature. Duke was interviewed by national media at the rally.
In an interview with Fox News, Congressman Tom Garrett condemned the bigotry and racism at the rally and blamed people from “Arkansas, Colorado, and Louisiana, and New York who all came to a bucolic town where Thomas Jefferson sat when he wrote the words ‘All men are created equal.’”
Abraham says he takes affront to the statement linking Louisianans to the white supremacists’ rally, and urges people to not paint everyone in the state with a broad brush.
“David Duke does not speak for Louisiana,” he says. “I don’t want Louisiana singled out. Louisianans are overwhelmingly appalled by what we saw at the rally. Racism, bigotry and violence have no place in our society.”
