Audio cut in speech on Black people’s role in Memorial Day

HUDSON, Ohio (AP) — Organizers of a Memorial Day ceremony in Ohio turned off the featured speaker’s microphone when a former Army officer began recalling how freed Black slaves honored fallen soldiers after the Civil War. Retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter says he wanted to share the history of what led to Memorial Day. But one of the event’s organizers in Hudson, Ohio, says that wasn’t relevant to the program’s theme of honoring veterans from the city. Kemter’s microphone was cut for two minutes of his 11-minute speech. He says he was disappointed, saying this was not the same country he fought for.