Don Lemon compares himself to civil rights leaders at Human Rights Campaign gala after St Paul church storming arrest

"So last week, I felt the weight of that truth in a very, very personal way," Lemon said while speaking at the Human Rights Campaign's 2026 gala in New York City. "Can you imagine the state having control of your freedom simply because they don't like that you are doing your job? So that was very frightening to me."

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"But in my time when I was there, I thought about all the people who'd come before me. I thought about all of the people who fought for civil rights, who fought for gay rights, all of the people who were at Stonewall, Marsha P. [Johnson]. I'm like, yes, those are the people, those are the real heroes. And so what’s happening to me, I have, at least in this time that I’m living now, more agency, more resources, more rights, that I would hope, than the people who were fighting for our freedom and our civil rights," Lemon added.

Although Lemon has claimed that he was simply there as a "journalist" to document the storming of the church, he compared himself to those who engaged in protests during the speech. However, he still insisted that he was not part of the protest.

"I saw how fast a story can be turned into a warning. But I'm not an activist. I'm not a protester. I am a journalist. And my calling is not to shout, but my calling is to witness. And that's what they're afraid of, of that witness to tell," Lemon added.

Lemon was arrested last month and then released without bail on January 30. After he was released last month, Lemon made comparisons between himself and Martin Luther King Jr. as well as Malcolm X in a post to Substack.

A Temple University student who was charged in the storming of the church has also admitted that he helped Lemon with logistics as well as with local contacts on the ground ahead of the church incident, suggesting that it was planned and not passive coverage of the event.