Gov. Barbour On Segregated South: It Wasn't "That Bad"

Haley Barbour and the KKK in Yazoo City
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is out with a statement today walking back his friendly comments about the White Citizens Councils of the 1960s. Here it is via Politico:  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 cons...

Discussing Civil Rights Era, a Governor Is Criticized
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR NYT WASHINGTON — In an interview that set off a new round of debate on Monday about racial attitudes and politics, Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a potential Republican Presidential Candidate, recalled the 1960s Civil Rights struggle in his hometown, Yazoo City, saying, “I just don’t remember it as being that bad.” In a profile published Monday in The Weekly Standard, Mr. Barbour also talked about the White Citizens’ Councils of the late 1960s, which o

Barbour defends comments on race, but is the damage done to his potential 2012 bid? (The Ticket)
Could Haley Barbour's comments on race doom his potential 2012 GOP presidential run before it even starts? On Tuesday, the Mississippi Governor sought to clarify his remarks to the Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson about growing up at the height of the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi. "I just don't remember it as being that bad," Barbour had told Ferguson, noting that his hometown, Yazoo City, Miss., wasn't at the flash point of racial tensions at the time. The Governor went on to credit ...

Haley Barbour Responds
Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. 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. Their vehicle, called the "Citiz...

Ouch, that is going to leave a Mark..
Okay, who left the stupid door open again?!?!? Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), a potential Republican Presidential Candidate, has an interesting perspective on the tumults of the Civil Rights era that swept through his Deep South state. As Barbour recalls it in a new profile in The Weekly Standard, things weren’t so bad in his hometown of Yazoo City, which took until 1970 to integrate its schools (though the final event itself is said to have gone on peacefully). For example, Barbour says that ...

Possible 2012 presidential candidate Barbour clarifies civil rights remark
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, who may seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, went into damage control mode Tuesday because of remarks he made about the 1960s Civil Rights movement in his state. A profile of Barbour in a conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard, included comments from him about what life was like growing up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. “I just don’t remember it as being that bad,” Barbour said. The ...

Barbour explains remarks about desegregation
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a potential Republican Presidential Candidate, said Tuesday he was not trying to downplay the pain that many endured during the South's segregation era when he defended his home town's 1970 Public School integration process. Barbour spoke out a day after several liberal Activists criticized his published comments about school Desegregation in Yazoo City, which occurred when he was 20. Historical accounts confirm the schools integrated peacefully, as Barbour stated...

Barbour defends Miss. school integration account
WASHINGTON—Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a potential Republican Presidential Candidate, rebutted critics Monday who said he is sugar-coating his state's history of racial integration. At issue is the January 1970 integration of Public Schools in Barbour's home town of Yazoo City, when he was 20. Historical accounts confirm the schools integrated peacefully, as Barbour stated in a recent profile in the Weekly Standard magazine. Some liberal groups, however, said his comments skimmed over...

Barbour Spokesman Stands By Barbours Praise of White Supremacist Organization
Speaking to a Weekly Standard reporter recently, Haley Barbour said things had gone pretty smoothly in Yazoo City, Mississippi thanks to the strong influence of a moderate white supremacist organization: You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders . In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you’d ...

Blog Buzz: The Barbour backlash
Ali Weinberg writes: Bloggers on the left and right responded to Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s statement today walking back his comments on the Civil Rights era. But the racial sensitivity at Barbour headquarters was suggested by an exchange between the Candidate and an aide who complained that there would be ''coons'' at a campaign stop at the State Fair. Embarrassed that a reporter heard this, Mr. Barbour warned that if the aide persisted in Racist remarks, he would be reincarnated as...

Barbour addresses furor over civil rights comments
Washington (CNN) - Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour responded Tuesday to an avalanche of criticism over remarks he made to The Weekly Standard about the Civil Rights movement. In a statement issued through his office, Barbour stressed that the Civil Rights era in Mississippi was "a difficult and painful era." He also withdrew accolades for a local branch of the all-white, pro-segregation Citizens Councils, which he had credited with preventing racial strife in his hometown of Yazoo City. Liberal w...

Haley Barbour: 'The 'Citizens Council,' is totally indefensible, as is segregation.'
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour issues a statement about the recent Controversy: Dec. 21, 2010 GOV. BARBOUR’S STATEMENT REGARDING Weekly Standard ARTICLE “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 shoul...

Historian: Segregationist Citizens Councils Were A 'Terrorist Organization'
So what was Gov. Haley Barbour doing, exactly, when he defended the reputation of the Citizens Councils, a segregationist movement that was formed to oppose the Civil Rights movement after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision? Barbour released a statement this afternoon, declaring: "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. Their vehicle, called the 'Citizens Council,' is totally in...

Barbour Clarifies Comments on Integration
By Danny Yadron Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, an oft-mentioned presidential hopeful, today offered what he called a clarification of statements on race and integration he made to the Weekly Standard. Mr. Barbour caught a lot of flack for his comments to the magazine about growing up in the South during the Civil Rights era. His clarification walks back from some of those comments and calls citizens’ councils, local groups used to block integration, “totally indefensible.”  In the ..

Barbour Doesnt Recall Civil Rights Era Being That Bad
The Hill reports: Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says he doesn’t remember the Civil Rights era being “that bad,” citing his attendance at a Martin Luther King Jr. rally nearly 50 years ago. “I just don’t remember it as being that bad,” Barbour (R), 63, told the conservative Weekly Standard, which did a lengthy profile on the Governor. “I remember Martin Luther King came to town, in ’62. He spoke out at the old fairground and it was full of people, black ...

Gov. Haley Barbour Praises White Supremacist Group
The meltdown of the Republican Party into a stinky puddle of Racist goo is accelerating. In an interview with the Weekly Standard, Governor Haley Barbour (R-MS) actually praised the Civil Rights era white supremacist group known as the “White Citizens’ Council.” As Barbour recalls it in a new profile in The Weekly Standard, things weren’t so bad in his hometown of Yazoo City, which took until 1970 to integrate its schools (though the final event itself is said to have gon...

Haley Barbour clarifies comments on civil rights era
Too late? 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. Their vehicle, called the ‘Citizens Council,’ is totally indefensible, as is segrega

Haley Barbour: I Am Not A Racist; Peter King: Im Willing To Be Called A Bigot
Mississippi Governor and possible Presidential Candidate Haley Barbour praised the anti-integration Citizens Councils of his hometown in a profile in the conservative Weekly Standard. “You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you’d lose it. If you had

Today's 2 Minutes Of Liberal Hate: Haley Barbour Loves Racists Or Something
The Weekly Standard has a lengthy and positive profile of Mississippi Governor and possible GOP Presidential Candidate Haley Barbour. It seems some on the left, led by Matt Yglesias and followed by the usual suspects at TPM, The Atlantic and Politico, Time and MSNBC, are outrageously outraged by this passage dealing with Barbour's recollection of his hometown's integration efforts. Both Mr. Mott and Mr. Kelly had told me that Yazoo City was perhaps the only municipality in Mississippi that man...

Why this will sink Haley Barbour in 2012
There is a school of thought that Haley Barbour's comments about life in the Civil Rights-era South and Yazoo City chapter of the White Citizens Council represent some kind of cunning, premeditated political strategy -- that the Mississippi Governor, in provoking the wrath of liberal commentators, is now poised to win over sympathetic Conservatives for a potential 2012 White House bid. As the New Republic's Jonathan Chait puts it: His past is not Racist enough to disqualify him, but it is murky ...

Haley Barbour's race blinders
Despite his just-released statement of contrition, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) has a blind spot the size of the Confederate Flag when it comes to race. I'm not saying that this son of the South is a Racist. I am saying that, for the second time this year, Barbour has displayed a stunning lack of insight, knowledge or even sensitivity to the role race played and continues to play in his own backyard. Note that I said this year. Greg Sargent yesterday pointed to some of Barbour's race missteps fr...

Haley Barbour Responds to Racial-Tension Criticism, Calls Segregation 'Indefensible'
Conceding that the Civil Rights movement "was a difficult and painful era for Mississippi," Gov. Haley Barbour responded Tuesday to criticism of comments he made that appeared to downplay the racial tensions of the 1960s and praise segregationist groups in his home state. The Republican's latest remarks don't quite amount to an Apology, but offer some clarification about his defense of the all-white organizations called Citizens Councils, whose actions he now says are "totally indefensible." In ...

Barbour: Citizens councils 'indefensible'
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, facing a storm of criticism, on Tuesday clarified remarks that he made about integration in a recent magazine article, saying that white Citizens Councils in the South were "totally indefensible, as is segregation." Barbour, a potential Republican Presidential Candidate, was alluding to a rose-tinted recollection he had offered about the role of one such group in his hometown of Yazoo City. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset Politico 44 In an inte...

Barbour walks back comments on civil rights era
After coming under fire yesterday for his remarks about the Civil Rights movement, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has issued a statement to clarify his recollections of "Citizens Council" groups and segregation in the South. “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. M...

Quote of the Day
"You're trying to paint the Governor as a Racist. And nothing could be further from the truth."—Dan Turner, spokesperson for Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Acist), who recently waxed nostalgic for the Citizens' Councils which were "the respectable face of white supremacist political Activism" preceding and during the Civil Rights Era, which Barbour recalls as a time that wasn't "that bad." So nothing is further from the truth than "Haley Barbour is a racist"? Cool! Let's think of some things that a...