A parade float depicting Vice President Kamala Harris chained behind a truck with former President Donald Trump on it drew outrage from residents and officials who compared it to an infamous lynching.
The 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr., who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas, became the impetus behind state and federal hate crimes laws.
Attendees at a Halloween parade in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania saw echoes of that horror in a parade float. Resident Josh Huff, who was at the parade, told WPXI that the float reminded him of a lynching, as did Mount Pleasant Mayor Diane Bailey:
“It’s a hot political season, probably not something I’d want at a children’s parade,” said Josh Huff, who was at the parade.
In a video sent to Channel 11 by a viewer, you can see the float in question.
There are people dressed as Secret Service members surrounding a golf cart-style vehicle.
Riding in the cart is a person wearing a mask of former President Donald Trump.
On the top of the vehicle is a fake sniper.
“The worst part of it was that there was either a rope or a chain attached to the back of the vehicle, and there was a woman who was to resemble Kamala Harris in handcuffs and chained to the back of the vehicle as though they were dragging her,” said Mount Pleasant Mayor Diane Bailey, a Democrat.
“This is not a good look, this is simulating a lynching down Main Street in Mount Pleasant. It is not the community I grew up in, not the community I came back to,” Huff added. “It was dark. It was dark. This has been escalated way beyond what it should be.”
