Black lawmakers say 'tea party' protesters used racial epithets
--washingtonpost--
By Paul Kane
Saturday, March 20, 2010; 6:12 PM

Black lawmakers said Saturday that "tea party" protesters outside the Capitol hurled racial epithets at Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a former civil rights leader who was nearly beaten to death during a 1965 march, as he headed out of the building on his way to President Obama's final health-care rally.

Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), walking next to Lewis after the Obama speech, told reporters that protesters yelled "kill the bill," then used a racial epithet to describe Carson and Lewis, who is a revered figure on both sides of the aisle. By the time the president spoke, thousands of protesters had gathered south of the Capitol.

Carson told reporters from Roll Call and other media outlets that the protesters were shouting racial slurs. "It was like a page out of a time machine," he said. Lewis's office has not yet commented on the matter.

The episode happened as the House concluded a set of votes mid-afternoon before heading to the Obama speech, and it came after an earlier tea party protest had ended on the west side of the Capitol. After that more than 100 protesters moved to the south entrance of the House, whose members held a series of votes throughout the day as a prelude to Sunday's showdown. On the first day of spring, most lawmakers walked across the street -- rather than using the underground tunnels connecting their office buildings to the Capitol -- exposing themselves to hundreds of protesters who lined each side of the walkway leading into the House.

Some protesters cursed at lawmakers and at one point -- when Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) wanted to walk across the street to an office building -- he was ushered into a car by his security detail and driven a couple hundred feet through the screaming crowd.