Cincinnati restaurateur Jeff Ruby invited Nathan Phillips, the activist, and students from Covington Catholic High School to “break bread and make amends” at one of his restaurants.
“There might be blame on both sides,” Ruby said. “We have to remember these are kids in this situation. There may have been things done and said in the heat of the moment. I'd like to get both sides together, get them talking and maybe take a moment to stand in the other’s shoes.”
But the offer was rejected by Phillips, who said he couldn’t accept after the statement issued by Nick Sandmann, the student who Phillips approached during the encounter.
Phillips said that he wanted some of the teachers and chaperones fired. While he initially didn’t want any students expelled, he’s reconsidering that stance.
Phillips later changed his story and said that he wanted to intervene in a back-and-forth between the students and a group of Black Hebrew Israelites. The African-American group was seen in the video footage hurling obscenities at the students. Phillips said that he “was called by God” to step in.
The activist maintains that Sandmann was in the wrong.
“He stole my narrative,” Phillips said. “From the time I hit that first beat of the drum until I hit the last beat, I was in prayer. Now all of a sudden, he’s the prayer guy and the passive one.”
Phillips in other interviews has called the students “like a lynch mob” and “beastly.” One member of his group shouted at the students that they “stole our lands” and should “go back to Europe,” while Phillips’s initial claim that the students chanted “build the wall” was not backed up by the video evidence.
Sandmann noted that his group was waiting for buses in front of the Lincoln Memorial, which would take them back to Kentucky, after participating in the March for Life rally and sightseeing, when the Black Hebrew Israelites began calling them vulgar names.
About Phillips approaching him, Sandmann wrote: “The protestor everyone has seen in the video began playing his drum as he waded into the crowd, which parted for him. I did not see anyone try to block his path. He locked eyes with me and approached me, coming within inches of my face. He played his drum the entire time he was in my face.”
Sandmann said that he was “startled and confused” as to why Phillips was aggressively drumming in his face and chanting.
“I believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to diffuse the situation. I realized everyone had cameras and that perhaps a group of adults was trying to provoke a group of teenagers into a larger conflict. I said a silent prayer that the situation would not get out of hand,” he said. “I never felt like I was blocking the Native American protestor. He did not make any attempt to go around me. It was clear to me that he had singled me out for a confrontation, although I am not sure why.”
