Political Junky
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- May 27, 2009
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Now, watch Haley try to save himself from his own remarks.
Haley Barbour?s Race Gaffe: He Needs a Civil Rights History Lesson - The Daily Beast
As Mississippi's Haley Barbour faces outrage for praising a historically racist organization, Harold Evans says he wishes the governor could have met an unsung hero like P.D. East, who fought the wrongs perpetrated against blacks instead of explaining away the injustices.
Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, is a burly, straight-talking, warm, and genial fellow. He is often talked of as a presidential candidate. If he does run, I'd advise him to brush up on his American history pretty quickly.
Rogelio V. Solis / AP Photo
As Benjamin Sarlin reported on The Daily Beast, Barbour is offering a rosy picture of an organization throughout the Deep South in the 1950s and '60s known as the Citizens Councils. According to Barbour, who grew up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, the councils were benign, "an organization of town leaders hostile to the Ku Klux Klan In Yazoo City, they passed a resolution that anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town."
That is not what I saw. I was in Mississippi in 1956 as a newspaper reporter from Britain. Traveling extensively for six months in the Deep South, I saw firsthand the activities of the White Citizens Councilas they called themselves then. They were just the Klan in a white collar.
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Haley Barbour?s Race Gaffe: He Needs a Civil Rights History Lesson - The Daily Beast
As Mississippi's Haley Barbour faces outrage for praising a historically racist organization, Harold Evans says he wishes the governor could have met an unsung hero like P.D. East, who fought the wrongs perpetrated against blacks instead of explaining away the injustices.
Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, is a burly, straight-talking, warm, and genial fellow. He is often talked of as a presidential candidate. If he does run, I'd advise him to brush up on his American history pretty quickly.
Rogelio V. Solis / AP Photo
As Benjamin Sarlin reported on The Daily Beast, Barbour is offering a rosy picture of an organization throughout the Deep South in the 1950s and '60s known as the Citizens Councils. According to Barbour, who grew up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, the councils were benign, "an organization of town leaders hostile to the Ku Klux Klan In Yazoo City, they passed a resolution that anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town."
That is not what I saw. I was in Mississippi in 1956 as a newspaper reporter from Britain. Traveling extensively for six months in the Deep South, I saw firsthand the activities of the White Citizens Councilas they called themselves then. They were just the Klan in a white collar.
<more>