FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – A North Carolina teacher who was suspended for stomping on the American flag to teach students about the First Amendment plans to hold a wide ranging civil rights rally to protest his suspension.

Massey Hill Classical High School teacher Lee Francis told the Fayetteville Observer that he organized a protest across the street from the school at 9 a.m. tomorrow, when his supporters will march wearing black.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

“This is to show the community really does not stand only behind me, but they understand the larger issues in the area,” Francis said.

He connected his cause to the race riots in Charlotte, and gay rights.

“We are marking for folks in Charlotte, for the death of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, for the LGBTQ community,” he said. “We’re marching for the voices that aren’t heard.”

Students in Francis’ American History class were outraged last week when the first year teacher trampled the American flag while illustrating a point about the Supreme Court case of Texas v. Johnson, which upheld flag degradation as a form of protected free speech.

Students claim Francis first asked them for a lighter or scissors but when nobody produced them he tossed Old Glory on the ground and stomped on it. A parent of a Massey Hill student posted a picture to Facebook of Francis standing on the flag that was forwarded by a friend, along with a description of the lesson, and it ignited an online firestorm.

“I called the Principal Dr. Adams and asked her why he couldn’t have talked about it and not actually disrespect the flag like that and she completely stood up for him,” parent Sara Taylor wrote in the post.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

“A few students left the classroom and one took the flag with them and asked that it properly taken care of. With the County getting so much funding for our military kids at this school, I ask the question of mutual respect, nothing less, nothing more,” she wrote. “That flag might not mean anything to that teacher, but it means a lot to us and it means a lot to the families who had their service member come home to them in a casket with that flagged draped over it.”

Numerous families from nearby Fort Bragg and Pope Army Airfield send their children to Cumberland County Schools.

Francis, who challenged state Rep. Elmer Floyd in the Democratic primary before dropping out of the race in December, previously called for a “revolution” in education to give educators more control over curriculum. He also supports universal healthcare, homeless rights, gay rights, and an increased minimum wage, the Observer reports.

Instead of humbly apologizing for offending students and the community, Francis doubled down on his justification for the lesson online and was eventually suspended as district officials investigate his antics.

“Just because I step on the flag doesn’t mean I step on their graves,” Francis told WNCN in response to critics who claim the lesson disrespects those who gave their lives for his freedom. “It doesn’t mean I step on their bodies as they return from overseas. It means I step on a piece of fabric.”

Superintendent Frank Till Jr., who pointed out shortly after the incident that “there are other ways to teach First Amendment rights without desecrating the flag,” has recommended a 10-day unpaid suspension for Francis, a move that has not yet been approved by the school board, the Observer reports.