Protesters storm Minnesota GOP event, holding "KKK" sign as Black gubernatorial candidate spoke

Protesters, including one who held a sign referencing the Ku Klux Klan, disrupted a speech by Minnesota House Speaker and gubernatorial candidate Lisa Demuth at a Republican dinner in Eagan on Friday evening.

Demuth was at the podium at the Omni Hotel during the Minnesota GOP's annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner when the protesters entered the room. The Klan is a white supremacist group.

Demuth is the first Black woman to be speaker in the state House, and the first Black person to be a party nominee for governor in the state.

The Sunrise Movement said it was behind the disruption, along with a group called Climate Defiance. Sunrise describes itself as a group "building a movement of young people to end billionaire rule."  

"The KKK's legacy of racial violence and hierarchy is alive and well within the GOP. We disrupted this fundraiser because we refuse to give a moment's peace to the people bankrolling racial violence," a group spokesperson wrote in a statement.

Minnesota GOP Chair Alex Plechash blasted the protesters Saturday in a statement for using "a symbol of racial terror at a Black woman leader, at a dinner named for the president who ended slavery."

Plechash said the symbols "still have no place anywhere, least of all aimed at a Black woman seeking the highest office in our state."

Eagan police said officers told eight people to leave. It's not clear whether any criminal charges will be pursued.