Updated: 4:02 PM EDT June 9, 2021
A retired U.S. Army officer is getting a chance to deliver his speech about freed Black slaves who honored fallen Civil War soldiers.
The American Legion Department of Ohio says it has invited retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter to speak next week at an event hosted by the organization.
Kemter was speaking at a Memorial Day event hosted by a local American Legion post in northeastern Ohio when his microphone was turned off as he talked.
The start of the speech at the 47-minute mark below.
Two of the event’s organizers later resigned under pressure after Ohio American Legion officials said the decision to censor the speech was premeditated and planned.
A top official of an American Legion post in Ohio resigned after he and a colleague reportedly censored a Memorial Day speech that mentioned how Black people spearheaded the earliest commemoration of the holiday on