Captain America is leading the charge against bigotry. Minutes after the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Jeff Sessions as attorney general February 8, Chris Evans tweeted his dismay.
Referencing the racism accusations lobbied against the 70-year-old senator (in 1986, a Senate committee denied the then–U.S. attorney a federal judgeship when his former colleagues testified that he used the n-word and jokingly said he thought the Ku Klux Klan were “OK, until he learned that they smoked marijuana”), the Captain America: Civil War actor, 35, wrote that if former KKK leader David Duke “thinks you’re right, then you are unequivocally wrong.”
His missive sparked a response from Duke, who previously hailed Sessions’ nomination as “great.” The ex–KKK grand wizard slammed Evans as a “typical dumb actor” before writing, “If everything I say is wrong, then when I say I oppose these Zionists wars, you must be for them, Captain America!?”
Evans responded by tweeting an article of Duke’s most famous quotes, labeling them “nuggets of bigotry” and saying he stood by his original tweet.
While Duke stayed silent on the matter, Evans wrapped up the exchange with a positive message, writing simply, “We can’t let hatred be the loudest voice.”
This isn’t the first time the Boston-born actor has spoken out to his nearly five million twitter followers. On November 9, as Donald Trump was named the winner of the presidential election, Evans wrote, “This is an embarrassing night for America. We’ve let a hate monger lead our great nation. We’ve let a bully set our course. I’m devastated.”