On Sunday, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) gave a commencement address at Tougaloo College, a historically black college in Jackson, Mississippi, that was anything but uplifting.
During her remarks, Crockett appeared to hint at the promotion of using violence, telling the grads they need to know “how to use a chair” against people who say they don’t belong.
“There are going to be people that tell you that you don’t belong, and I am here to tell you over and over and over that you absolutely belong,” Crockett told the graduates.
“There are people that are gonna tell you that there is not a table in which there is a seat for you, but I am here to remind you of Montgomery and those folding chairs. Let me tell you that we know how to use a chair, whether we’re pulling it up or we’re doing something else with it. Let me be the first one to tell you that I know that y’all are ready to put your boots on the ground.”
According to The Daily Caller, Crockett appears to reference an incident where a folding chair was used as a weapon during a brawl.
Crockett appeared to reference a 2023 brawl in Montgomery, Alabama, where some white private boaters brawled with a number of black men, including a dock worker, with at least one of the black men using a folding chair as a weapon during the incident.
Watch:
Representative Jasmine Crockett urged college graduates to “use a chair” against haters. I’m relieved chairs are scarce in Congress’s halls.
pic.twitter.com/boXHFZ30Ga— Charles R Downs (@TheCharlesDowns) May 5, 2025
You can watch the full speech below:
Crockett’s hints of violence are in sharp contract to President Trump’s uplifting commencement address at the University of Alabama last week.
During his remarks, he told graduates, “If you think that you are too young to do something great, you are wrong. Now is the time to work harder than you have ever worked before, push yourself… find your limits, and then smash through them.”
President Trump also shared the profound ten lessons he has learned about life.
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