Organizers at a Memorial Day event in Hudson, Ohio, cut the audio on a veteran’s microphone, shortly after he began discussing the role Black people played in establishing the national holiday to honor military personnel who died in battle.
According to Akron Beacon Journal, the incident was not caused by a technical difficulty, it was a deliberate act done by organizers of the event.
The incident occurred just minutes after keynote speaker, retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter started to deliver remarks.
About two minutes into his speech Kemter’s audio was cut when he started discussing how a group of freed black people were the first to commemorate the holiday when shortly after the Civil War they exhumed the remains of more than 200 Union soldiers who died in battle in Charleston and gave them “a proper burial.”
An organizer for the event confirmed to the Journal that either she or another organizer had the audio cut.
The organizer, Cindy Suchan, told the paper that the portion of Kemter’s speech in which the audio was cut “was not relevant to our program for the day” and that the “theme of the day was honoring Hudson veterans.”
In the days leading up to the ceremony, Suchan said she reviewed Kemter’s speech and asked him to remove certain portions.
“We asked him to modify his speech, and he chose not to do that,” she said.
When pressed on who exactly turned down the audio, she would not say if it was her or Jim Garrison, adjutant of American Legion Lee-Bishop Post 464.
The event’s audio engineer later told the Journal that it was Garrison who turned down the audio and then turned it back up after the engineer refused to censor the speech.
Despite their attempts, Kemter said his speech was well received by the audience. He told the Journal that he received “numerous compliments” from attendees who told him “it was nice to hear the history.”
But he’s disappointed with the organizers’ actions.
“I find it interesting that [the American Legion] … would take it upon themselves to censor my speech and deny me my First Amendment right to [freedom of] speech,” Kemter said. This is not the same country I fought for.”
