American Flag–Loving Protesters Shut Down a Georgia College Campus Over A Viral Video

Michelle Manhart loves America so much that she joined the Air Force when she was only 16 years old. However, she had dreamed of posing in Playboy—and considered it "the best magazine for models"—since she was a young girl. Those two passions collided in 2007, when she was booted from the service for posing both in her uniform and nude for the magazine.

The sometimes-actress had the opportunity to serve her country again last week, when she snatched a flag away from a group of protestors. A video of the incident has been viewed more than a million times on YouTube and made headlines across the country. But practically no one is talking about the much stranger—and darker—events that preceded and followed the flag-snatching, including the manhunt for a black student accused of bringing a gun onto campus.

The flag-stomping has received so much attention that Valdosta State canceled classes and shut down the campus today in anticipation of a "Flags Over VSU" protest. Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress told local media the rally was expected to draw between 2,000 and 3,000 people coming out "to support the American flag." That estimate might even have been lower than the actual turnout: According to Facebook, 4,000 people pledged to descend upon the small town in southern Georgia.

But the controversy over a flag is actually something much more sinister, highlighting racial tensions that exist in the small, south Georgia town. For instance,the group hosting the pro-flag rally is called "It's not racist it's facts," and posts on Facebook under the vanity URL "itsawhitething." People on social media are fearful that there will be racially motivated violence in the area

The story began last week, when a sociology major named Eric "E.J." Sheppard, a self-described member of the New Black Panther Party, organized a protest against racism that involved stomping on an American flag. When the protests continued over the next several days and the school's administration refused to step in, veteran Manhart decided to take matters into her own hands.

"Anytime it's been torn or ripped, it needs to be properly disposed of," she told a female student after ripping a flag away from her last Friday. "We're gonna take care of that. This belongs, actually, to the entire United States." Manhart later got into a sort of tug-of-war with police and was detained but not charged, although she was banned from campus.

Things escalated on Tuesday when police said they found a backpack on campus that contained a gun and documentation they say shows Sheppard purchased it as a local pawn shop. Sheppard is now the subject of a manhunt, and according to a university press release, the police are considering him "armed and dangerous."

"Please make the right decision and turn yourself in, either to the authorities or to me, and we will handle this together," Sheppard's father pleaded, via the Valdosta Daily Times." We love you and are here for you, as you requested."

A spokesperson from the Valdosta Police Department did not return requests for comment about whether or not there were any incidents at the protest Friday afternoon, but there haven't been any reports of arrests yet. Employees of the university could similarly not be reached today. In a video that circulated online, though, students seemed to gather peacefully and sing "The Star Spangled Banner" in honor of the flag.

Students sing

— Valdosta Daily Times (@TheVDT)April 20, 2015

Manhart, meanwhile, has become a conservative media hero for her attempt to save the flag. "We drape that flag over many coffins over the men and women that unfortunately don't get to come home the way they left; over our firefighters, our police officers, a lot of our civil servants," she told the Air Force Times. "If you're walking on that flag, then you're also walking on their caskets and you're walking on everything they stood for and you have no respect for the freedom that they have fought to make sure that you can have."

But the more important questions about how Sheppard went from a very promising young student to a wanted man go unasked. The details will probably emerge slowly, and out of the media spotlight, long after the adulation of Manhart fades away.

"E.J. is not as chaotic or dangerous as they think he is," a student named Lewis Cureton told the student newspaper at Valdosta. "He is simply angry because he's read a lot of history."

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