Laura Ingraham plays gunfire sounds during John Lewis' Washington March speech
Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on Monday railed about the commemoration ceremonies for the 50th anniversary of civil rights March on Washington, and then interrupted a recording of Rep. John Lewis' (D-GA) speech with the sound of gunfire.
Following the lead of conservative media outlets like Breitbart and The Blaze, Ingraham lashed out Martin Luther King III for saying on Saturday that "the color of one’s skin remains a license to profile, to arrest and to even murder."
"But it all comes down to just George Zimmerman?" she asked. "The goal was, as our caller said, to divide. To co-opt the legacy of Martin Luther King into a modern day liberal agenda, a left-wing agenda, progressive agenda. Whatever you want to call it. From gay marriage to immigration amnesty was thrown in for good measure. We talked about the Voting Rights Act."
To make her point about immigration, Ingraham played a portion of Lewis' speech.
"We must say to the Congress, pass comprehensive immigration reform," Lewis said. "It doesn't make sense that millions of our people..."
But the congressman's remarks were interrupted by a loud echoing gunshot followed by a few moments of silence. Ingraham offered no explanation for the sound effect.
In a 1965 march for voting rights that would come to be known as "Bloody Sunday," Lewis had his skull fractured by Alabama State Troopers while walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Even after his friend Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by a gunman in 1968, Lewis continued his commitment to the civil rights movement. He went on to settle in Georgia and run for Congress.
Following a commercial break, Ingraham had conservative columnist Pat Buchanan on the show to explain that Lewis, Rev. Al Sharpton and other speakers at Saturday's event were "part of a great racket."
"What will these folks do, quite frankly, if they had to get up and admit we've got more opportunities than any large group of black folks anywhere on Earth today and our community is not making the most of it?" Buchanan ranted.
Listen to this audio from The Laura Ingraham Show, broadcast Aug. 26, 2013.
(h/t: Media Matters)