Tall Boys member leaves teaching job after fallout from Coast Black Lives Matter protest

A Gautier High School history teacher has resigned days after he and a band mate encountered Black Lives Matter demonstrators in downtown Ocean Springs.

Michael Rauch, an American history teacher and guitar player for the Tall Boys, was playing live with the band at City Hall on June 1. At the same time, local students were holding a protest nearby at First Baptist Church.

The Tall Boys, booked by Mayor Shea Dobson, were playing to celebrate the return of live music to Ocean Springs during the coronavirus pandemic. The demonstrators, a group of about 20 to 30 people that included teenagers from Ocean Springs High, were taking part in a national wave of protests against the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The band approached the student demonstrators after finishing their set, and what happened next was captured in part on video shared widely on Facebook. Rauch, along with band mate John Gagliano, are seen laughing and smiling and shouting “All Lives Matter” as teens chanted “Black Lives Matter.”

The locally viral video led to an avalanche of calls to Gautier High calling for Rauch’s resignation.

That resignation was approved by the Pascagoula-Gautier School District board at their meeting on June 11, Rauch and an attorney for the district separately confirmed. The attorney for the district would not comment further on the reasons for Rauch’s resignation.

Rauch said he got a call from his employer the day after the demonstration, after the district received a “barrage” of calls.

Rauch said he believes he didn’t break any school rules but he decided to resign to avoid causing any issues.

He said he understands why the demonstrators felt that he and his band mate were mocking them. But the bigger problem, Rauch said, is that “kids” were used as “props” to serve an adult’s political agenda. The kids disagree.

Samantha Liles and Preston DiFatta, both 17-year-old seniors at Ocean Springs High, said they both learned about the gathering on Instagram from peers who were posting about it. They decided to go to the event organized by another teenager because they support the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I think that protesting is pretty good at changing things,” DiFatta said. “We’ve already had very small reforms from these protests... We have a lot of power if we band together.”

DiFatta called the Tall Boys’ actions “silly” and “dumb,” but said he doesn’t think Rauch deserved to lose his job over it.

“They were just taking the piss out of us,” he said.

Liles sees it differently.

“If someone’s gonna be teaching history, he needs to know history,” she said. “This right now is going to be history, and he’s obviously on the wrong side of it.”

The scene at the BLM demonstration

The Tall Boys and the demonstrators largely agree on the outlines of their interaction. After finishing their performance, the Tall Boys approached and tried to take pictures with the demonstrators. Gagliano, a drummer who says the band likes to take pictures everywhere they go, said it was just “a silly thing.”

Liles disagreed.

“I was like, ‘No, you’re not getting into our picture, you haven’t been here all day, you’re not even protesting for Black Lives Matter,’” Liles said.

The demonstrators, carrying signs that said “BLM” and “I can’t breathe,” started chanting “Black Lives Matter.” At first, Gagliano says, he and Rauch chanted along. Gagliano began chanting, “All Lives Matter.”

Gagliano then added a new line to the chant.

“Because I’m an idiot and I thought it was funny and we’re a satirical band, I started chanting ‘Tall Boys Matter,’” Gagliano said in an interview.

Rauch chanted along.

“If you see the expression on my face, I thought it was kind of funny,” he said.

Response from restaurants, bars, city

The Tall Boys say that their intent — humor or publicity — was innocent. Demonstrators say the band’s actions were the kind of belittling derision that has been used to ridicule and silence calls for change throughout American history.

Liles recalled Rauch and Gagliano telling her and other demonstrators that “protesting doesn’t do anything.”

“As a part of the younger generation, we want to have our voices heard, and they are coming up to us and telling us we’re wrong, telling us that our opinions aren’t valued at all,” Liles said.

At some point during the exchange, Rauch walked away. Gagliano’s interaction with the demonstrators continued.

Rauch, Gagliano and demonstrators interviewed agreed that the third member of the band didn’t engage with the protesters.

In a 10-minute video taken by a demonstrator, which the Tall Boys later posted on Facebook, Gagliano says Floyd’s killing was “atrocious.” The demonstrators asked Gagliano why he came over to counter their protests.

“You literally came over here to make fun of us,” one says.

Eventually, the demonstrators decided to leave.

After that, Gagliano and Rauch left, too. The nine-second clip was posted on Facebook that evening. As of June 15, it had been shared 477 times.

The band posted several statements to their Facebook page, disputing “any allegations of racism, homophobia, discrimination” and emphasizing that Gagliano was responsible for most of the interactions with demonstrators.

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Gagliano said. “We exercised our freedom of speech.”

After the incident, Dobson apologized for the Tall Boys’ actions on Facebook. The city of Ocean Springs and many bars and restaurants have pledged not to hire them in the future.

This story was originally published June 16, 2020 at 12:00 AM.