Ben Crump's Job Is to Create a Race War | Jason Whitlock Harmony

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

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Jason Whitlock (0:24)

Maybe one day, Holly will make a movie about Ben Crump. It will be similar to the movie, Charlie Wilson's War. Let me tell you a little story about what Ben Crump did this weekend. He posted a video. He knew it was old. He posted it on September 26th anyway. Two months after black Hebrew Israelites marched in Mississippi, shouting about Nolan Wells, Crump recycled the march as if the streets were on fire today. That is not a mistake. That is a decision. Take a listen.

Crump tweeted that out as if it had just happened. And he tweeted out saying that, you know, voices are still being heard about Nolan Wells to create the impression that this was going on this past weekend. Ask why now, ask why this footage on this date, a grand jury already looked at the evidence in the Wells case and found no foul play. Investigators said what happened was consistent with drowning. Crump does not argue with that finding. He changes the subject. He posts old anger as new anger and dares you not to feel it. He is not alone. One day earlier on September 25th, Lee Merritt posted his own message.

Merritt wants you to believe black people are being lynched across this country right now.

Now, let's play the Merritt clip.

Lee Merritt (2:22)

Congressional Black Caucus Weekend and I and Pastor Dr. Jamal Bryant just completed our forum on the lynchings, the modern lynchings that are occurring in the United States. I am grateful for the hundreds of people who attended, who registered, who was there to hear what we had to say, receiving and take it back to the communities with the action plan. I'm feeling particularly grateful not only for everyone who attended, for everyone who made it possible. The Merritt Civil Rights Fellows left their campuses, worked all over the country and flew here and staffed the event. I'm grateful for the experts who dropped their schedule, some flying to town, forensic experts, mental health experts, to talk to us about the heart of the problem. I'm thankful for the organizing community, the leaders in the organizing community like Mark Morial, the Urban League, who showed up and told us his plan, state-to-state, a strategy for us to ensure that these lynchings are properly categorized and dealt with. I'm grateful for Christian Park, the new General Counsel of the NAACP and former Director of the Civil Rights Division for the Department of Justice, who came and told us the practical steps to push the federal government to begin to respond properly to this crisis of black hanging around the country. And I wanted to take a moment to tell you all thank you, everyone who invested their time, their money, their energy, into making this happen, and to tell you that it doesn't stop here. We received our marching orders. We have to take these solutions back to our community to make a real change. Remember, it's on us.

Jason Whitlock (3:49)

Merritt wants you to believe black people are being lynched across this country right now. Hanged, haunted. That was the claim inside that September 18th forum in Washington with Jamal Bryant, Mark L'Oreal, and Kristen Clark. Modern day lynchings with no arrest under the 2022 law.

If the meeting happened on the 18th, why sell it on the 25th? Why push a video a week later? Because the 25th sets up the 26th. Merritt primes the fear. Crump supplies the footage. Merritt says, come together and fight. Crump shows men in the streets shouting, same week, same case, same tactic.

This is coordination, not coincidence. Two civil rights attorneys, two posts, 24 hours apart, built around one dead boy from Mississippi whose case did not go the way they needed. Ask who benefits when old protests look new. Ask who goes broke if Mississippi is quiet. Ask who loses his camera, his donation link, his seat at the table if a grand jury is believed. Ben Crump does not make money when a tragedy is an accident. Merritt does not fill a form when the community is calm. Fear pays, calm does not. When you tell millions of black Americans they are being lynched without proof and you show them marching men to prove the panic is real, you're not seeking truth, you're manufacturing division. Which brings us back to Charlie Wilson's war.