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Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.)
Credit: BET
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Media Cleans Up Strom Thurmond's Racist Quote
by Hazel Trice Edney
NNPA Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON (NNPA)—In the wake of the controversy surrounding racist language recently used by former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, news outlets and web sites have focused on the words spoken in 1948 by retiring Senator Strom Thurmond.
Publications such as “The New York Times” and the “Washington Post” and all national news networks have purported to quote Thurmond’s views at the time regarding “the Negro race.” There is only one problem—that’s not exactly what Thurmond said.
According to an excerpt of the speech, which was posted on NPR.org, Thurmond says:
“And I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there’s not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theatres, into our swimming pools, into our homes and into our churches.”
That speech was made July 17, 1948, as Thurmond championed his platform of racial segregation. At the time, he was accepting the presidential nomination of the State’s Rights Party, more accurately called Dixiecrats.
Lott is far from being the only Republican under scrutiny for racist statements.
Rep. Cass Ballenger (R-N.C.) reportedly told ''The Charlotte Observer'' that some of his constituents might empathize with Lott’s original sentiment about segregation. He also said Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) once made him so angry that, “I must admit I had segregationist feelings.”
McKinney, known for her outspokenness, lost her bid for re-election.
“If I had to listen to her, I probably would have developed a little bit of a segregationist feeling,” Ballenger was quoted Friday in the Observer. “But, I think everybody can look at my life and what I’ve done and say that’s not true…I mean, she was such a bitch.”
McKinney could not be reached for immediate response.
Thurmond's speech was resurrected after Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott wished him a happy 100th birthday by saying America would have been better off had Thurmond been elected president.
“It shows exactly what Strom Thurmond represented and what Trent Lott endorsed,” says Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP’s board of directors. “The raw language, while properly not used in every day conversation, ought to be used in this context.”
Bond is not the only one who feels that way.
A. Peter Bailey, who teaches a journalism class at the University of District of Columbia in Washington, says he first heard the recording last week on “The Joe Madison Show” on WOL-AM in Washington, D.C., hosted by civil rights activist Joe “Black Eagle” Madison.
“The thing that the newspapers do that absolutely violates Journalism 101 is putting it in quotes,” Bailey says, referring to the word Negro. “They might say, you know, ‘We didn’t want to use the n-word’ or whatever. But there are times when you have to tell the truth.”
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