Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour recently scored himself the cover of the ‘Weekly Standard’, however it wasn’t for a noble cause but for the racist comments he made while reflecting on the civil rights era.
“I just don’t remember it as being that bad…I remember Martin Luther King came to town, in ’62. He spoke out at the old fairgrounds and it was full of people, black and white,” He said.
These comments outraged NAACP President Derrick Johnson who feels that Barbour isn’t ready to go national.
“There is absolutely no excuse for the governor trying create a new reality based on his view,” said Johnson. “There is evidence that he is racially insensitive to the history of this state and the plight of African Americans who fought to become equal citizens under the Constitution.”
The Governor’s team released a public statement regarding the matter, which makes Barbour seem as if he’s in denial of the struggles brought forth in the 1960s.
“When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns’ integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn’t tolerate it and helped prevent violence there.
My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either…. It was a difficult and painful era for Mississippi, the rest of the country, and especially African Americans who were persecuted in that time.”
Don’t know what he was thinking but in case ya’ll forgot!!!
