The Citizens Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-64

Yazoo Citizens
The Weekly Standard's sympathetic look at Haley Barbour, and his ambivalent words about this Civil Rights era, opened a bit of a Pandora's Box for him today, and Matthew Yglesias points to another passage in the story: Both Mr. Mott and Mr. Kelly had told me that Yazoo City was perhaps the only municipality in Mississippi that managed to integrate the schools without violence. I asked Haley B...

Yazoo City Citizens Council Was a White Supremacist Organization
As we saw below, the Citizens’ Council movement that Haley Barbour credits with keeping the peace in 1960s Mississippi was a white supremacist organization. That’s true of Citizens’ Councils in general, and Citizens’ Councils in Mississippi in particular. How about in Barbour’s hometown of Yazoo City? Yup. Here’s Neil R. McMillen’s The Citizens’ Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction: Barbour wants you to believe the Citizens...

Is Barbour too much contrast to Obama?
Mark Murray writes: If he runs for president, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) would present a powerful contrast to President Obama . While Obama is famously cool and wonkish, Barbour is a gregarious back-slapper; while Obama is tall and lean, Barbour is short and stocky; and while Obama campaigned as an outsider in '08, Barbour -- a former D.C. Lobbyist and RNC chairman -- is the classic Washington insider. The question, however, is whether the white Republican from Mississippi might be too m...

Texas Curriculum Changes Prompt Civil Rights Groups To Seek Review Of Public Schools In Lone Star State
HOUSTON — Two Civil Rights organizations are seeking a federal review of Public School education in Texas, accusing state school administrators of violating federal Civil Rights laws after Curriculum changes approved earlier this year by the Texas Board of Education. The request to the U.S. Department of Education made by the Texas NAACP and Texas League of United Latin American Citizens on Monday contended that the Curriculum changes passed in May "were made with the intention to discri...

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 is an Idiot
I guess people are agitated that Haley Barbour said some kind of stupid things again about his life growing up in Yazoo City, Mississippi. I read what he said and I don't think it's much of a Scandal. He said that his local White Citizen's Council kept the Ku Klux Klan from using violence or opening an active chapter in his hometown. And he said that the Civil Rights era in Yazoo City had not been that big of a deal. “I just don’t remember it as being that bad." Haley Barbour isn't going to ge..

Haley Barbour Defends Racist Group
Boss Hogg in the 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 a store, they'd see nobody shopped there. We didn't have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City." TPM's Eric Kleefeld has more about the Citizens Councils: ...

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 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...

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 ..

Das Racist: 'No Nikki Haley'
Here's mark of how deeply the oft-Googled Nikki Haley is making it into the Pop Culture, before she's even taken office. The unconventional Hip-Hop group Das Racist, which has some South Asian roots (and no connection to the White Citizens Council), name checks her in a track with Keepaway called "Zoo Too," casting her (I think) as a kind of mainstream counterpoint to their hip hop ideal. Or something. The context (about 3 minutes in): "No brown monkey/ Papa said I ain't a maca...

Haley Barbour praises the pro-segregation Citizens Council from Mississippi
Governor Haley Barbour (R-MS) is under fire today after some Controversial quotes of his emerged over the weekend.  Barbour is considered one of the favorites to challenge President Obama in 2012.  He has made a name for himself as a fiscal and social conservative in his time as Governor.  However, some have also accused Barbour of painting an idealistic picture of the Racist past in his state.  Earlier this year Barbour claimed that the state never really struggled with inte...

Haley Barbour Walks Back Remarks On Segregationist Citizens Council
WASHINGTON -- After facing intense criticism Monday over his comments about civil rights and the White Citizens Council, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) has released a follow-up statement condemning the segregationist group. 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...

Haley Barbour's racist civil rights era revisionism
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has a strategy for beating Sarah Palin to the Teabaggers' support in the 2012 primaries. Digby calls it his "Southern Strategy," consisting of a the dogwhistle message that "Racism in America was always overblown with the implication being that those who complain about it have always been whiners." That includes telling The Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson that the White Supremacist Citizens' Council was actually a force for good in the Civil Rights fight. Both M...

Potential Presidential Candidate Haley Barbour Fondly Remembers White Supremacist Group
Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images He's said he's months away from deciding whether or not to run for president, but for Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, the campaign for the Southern conservative vote seems to already have begun. In an interview with the Weekly Standard, Barbour explains how racial harmony existed in his hometown of Yazoo City due to the enlightened influence of ... the local Citizens' Council. Both Mr. Mott and Mr. Kelly had told me that Yazoo City was perhaps the only ...

Barbour defends Miss. school integration account
WASHINGTON (AP) — 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 com...

DNC spokesman: Barbour line 'disqualifying'
On a slow news day, it's open season on Haley Barbour, and DNC National Spokesman Hari Sevugan takes a shot at Haley Barbour's remark -- perhaps out of context -- that Desegregation of Yazoo City was "not that bad": He’s not ready for Prime Time or not ready for the 21st centu...

Barbour, a 2012 GOP prospect, on civil rights struggle: It wasn't all that bad
According to Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who grew up during the Civil Rights era, the struggle for racial equality in his hometown of Yazoo City wasn't so much of a struggle. In an interview with the Weekly Standard, the potential 2012 GOP presidential Candidate said, "I just don't remember it as being that bad."  Barbour also praised Citizens Councils, which intimidated blacks and whites alike from expressing support for Desegregation. In the interview, Barbour sai...

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...

RE: Barbour's Baggage
As Adam notes, if Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour decides to run for president, he'll come with a lot of baggage. Some of it will be of his own making. A few Barbour's comments in the story Adam cites - a profile of Barbour in the Weekly Standard by Andrew Ferguson - are coming back to bite him. Both Mr. Mott and Mr. Kelly had told me that Yazoo City was perhaps the only municipality in Mississippi that managed to integrate the schools without violence. I asked Haley Barbour why h...

Senate votes to end militarys gay ban
The US Senate voted to Repeal the ban on gays serving openly in the Military, marking the end of a Civil Rights battle that some gay Activists have compared to the Desegregation of the military after the second world war. Lawmakers passed the Repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, the 17-year-old policy that was implemented by former President Bill Clinton and barred Gays in the Military from discussing their Sexual Orientation, by a vote of 65 to 31. The measure won the support of eight

Barbour defends 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 th...

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...

Haley Barbour: I don't remember the civil rights era being that bad
The Fix called attention this morning to Haley Barbour's defense of his experience as a GOP Lobbyist in the Weekly Standard's new profile of the Mississippi Governor and potential 2012 Candidate. But buried toward the end of the piece, Barbour makes some more-eyebrow-raising comments in describing his home town of Yazoo City, Miss., during the Civil Rights era. As writer Andrew Ferguson describes the exchange: Both Mr. Mott and Mr. Kelly had told me that Yazoo City was perhaps the only municipal...

House to vote on bill banning sex offenders from schools
Legislation that would prevent schools from hiring Sex Offenders is likely to come to a vote in the House tomorrow. Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Carolyn Mccarthy (D-NY) introduced H.R. 6547, Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act, earlier in the session, and released the following joint statement today: School should be a safe place for all Children but a recent GAO report shows that in far too many instances, the very people responsible for the well-being of our student...