Black students thrown out of Donald Trump's rally speak out

A couple dozen students say they wore black for unity and were not protesting

Mr Trump's security staff have repeatedly run into confrontation (Noah Gray / CNN)

A group of students who were thrown out of a Donald Trump rally at their own school have finally spoken out to say the situation was “absurd” and “sobering” and they had no intention of protesting.

Law enforcement officers removed a couple dozen black students from the rally at Valdosta State University of Georgia on Monday.

The students, who were standing quietly, were asked to leave before Mr Trump had started speaking.

The video of them being escorted out by police, as well as a video showing a young black woman being pushed and shoved at a separate Trump rally, have prompted commentators to say the incidents were proof that Mr Trump’s campaign is fanning new waves of bigotry in the US.

In a new film the Valdosta students said they wore black simply to express unity and had attended the event to educate themselves on his campaign.

One student, Sierra Cooper, said she got into an argument with a white woman after she had been told to leave, and a police officer approached her and put a handcuff around her wrist. When her friend Kayla Rose Lindsey came over to help, the police officer handcuffed her friend and told her: “You want to go to jail too?“

“I’ve never witnessed so much hate and simple mindedness all at once,” said one student.

Two white students were also with the group.

One of them, Tatum Schindler, said: “It was very sobering. as a white person we don’t see racism/ we don’t receive it. we are at the giving end 90 per cent of the time, said one of the two white students.”

The local police chief Brian Childress told the Valdosta Daily Times that the students had been causing a disturbance and were "dropping the F word".

The incident follows Mr Trump proclaiming that "all lives matter" at a rally at Radford University in Viriginia, ordering Black Lives Matter protestors to be escorted from their own university.

Another video of TIME photographer Chris Morris being choke-slammed by a police officer at a Trump rally went viral. Mr Morris said he had worked for the magazine for almost 10 years and had never experienced any altercation like that before.

Mr Trump addressed the issue this week, saying he has been criticized for being “too harsh” and “too soft” towards “protestors”.

“So now I’ve adopted a nice, “alright, please get them out”,” said Mr Trump.