Here's a White guy about to stab a Black guy in the chest with an American Flag.

[MADem]

81. The photographer says the guy was swinging the flagpole and the swinger didn't connect.

The victim concurs with the photographer's assessment. It doesn't make the image any less horrific. From an article that ran in the Boston Globe:

As the student protesters approached Landsmark, Forman, detecting a malfunction with one of his
camera's motor drives, started shooting manually, frame by frame. And then his lens focused on Joe
Rakes and Ted Landsmark.
"A couple guys were yelling, ‘Get the n****r!’ " said Landsmark. "My nose got broken because one
of the guys hit me in the nose. And that, in part, is what knocked my glasses off. But I could see the flag
coming. It was a big flag. But the flag-bearer was swinging it. The appearance in the photograph is that he
was trying to impale me on it. In fact, he swung it at me, and I was able to lean back just enough that it
didn't actually hit me. Thank God."
But Rakes's near-miss did nothing to diminish the emotional power of the photograph. As he
witnessed the attack from his office overlooking the plaza, then-mayor White said he realized his city had
absorbed a stunning symbolic stain that would take years to fade.....

The perpetrator, OTOH, does remain unrepentant. The interview you are probably referring to is found at the above link. He has kept that flag and seems to have accommodated himself to living with his reputation.