Ole Miss players kneel in response to Confederacy rally

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — Eight University of Mississippi men’s basketball players kneeled during the national anthem Saturday in response to a Confederacy rally near the arena.

Minutes before the game against Georgia, both teams formed lines for the anthem. As soon as “The Star-Spangled Banner” began, six players from the Rebels took a knee and bowed. Toward the end of the anthem, two teammates joined them.

The Confederacy demonstration was led by out-of-state protesters a few hundred feet from the arena.

In the aftermath of violence at a similar rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, the Oxford community has been on alert.

Various student groups held counter-protests on campus Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, one began on the city square and ended at the Confederate monument in the heart of the Ole Miss campus.