A Black Lives Matter activist who was with the protester that was jumped by a mob at a Donald Trump rally is speaking out.
Carlos Chaverst Jr. told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin that he and the other protester were exercising their 1st amendment rights to freedom of speech when they were attacked by the mob and hauled out of the venue.
The man, who is still recovering from his injuries, shouted “Dump the Trump” and “Black Lives Matters” before he was tackled and body slammed to the floor.
In videos of the incident, Trump can be heard in the background yelling “Get him the hell out of here!”
Chaverst said he and his fellow activists had a permit to protest outside the Birmingham venue where Trump was speaking.
But for the first time since the BLM movement began, CNN challenged the confrontational tactics of Black Lives Matters activists.
“You knew [what] you were walking into,” said Baldwin, “why would you want to go in … and chant what you did?”
Chaverst replied, “My constitution does not limit where I can protest, and I wanted to protest inside Mr. Trump’s rally because we don’t want him welcome here in the city of Birmingham.”
Chaverst told Baldwin he would invite Trump to sit down with Black Lives Matters and “talk about the real issues that matters to, not only blacks, but the immigrants here.”
Chaverst added, “We are due an apology by Mr. Trump himself. There is no way that Mr. Trump is allowed to say that a black man should be roughed up in the city of Birmingham. That is not acceptable.”
