Letter to the Editor
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A few questions for those people screaming for Sen. Trent Lott's head:
What party did Strom Thurmond belong to when he ran for president as a Dixiecrat? Which party did George Wallace belong to when he attempted to block segregation of Alabama schools? Of which party was the governor of South Carolina who hoisted the Confederate flag over the State Capitol? To which party does the senior senator who is a former Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan and who spoke the dreaded "N" word two times in a nationally televised interview belong? In all cases they were Democrats.
It was the Democrats who voted for secession from the United States and were the governing party of the Confederate States of America. It was the Democrats who supported the Jim Crow laws and segregation. And it is the press that doesn't have the courage to print letters like mine to shine the light of truth on their chosen ones.
-- Roy Carlton, Chanhassen
I tried to keep my response short and sweet, while still crushing the Mr. Carlton with the power of logic.
Roy Carlton (Letters, December 14) tries to pin the charge of racism on the Democratic Party. However, he fails to mention one key fact. Strom Thumond's Dixiecrats stormed out of the 1948 Democratic National Convention when Hubert Humphrey took the stage and yelled, "I say the time has come to walk out of the shadow of states' rights and into the sunlight of human rights." Since then, it has been Democrats who have lead the fight for civil rights.
More telling are the questions Carlton fails to ask. Which party welcomed the Dixiecrat racists with open arms? Which party has fought against civil rights for over 50 years? Which party's Senate Majority Leader openly praises racist policies? Perhaps Carlton is afraid to ask those questions.
For my sources, I used the following articles:
Jim Chapin: Why the GOP's Southern Strategy Ended
Time, July 26, 1948: The Line Squall
Glenn Feldman: Dixiecrats: The States' Rights Party, 1948
The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow: Program Four: Terror and Triumph (1940-1954)