[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 42 (Wednesday, March 17, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E466-E467]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            EXPOSING RACISM

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 17, 1999

  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, in my continuing efforts to 
document and expose racism in America. I submit the following articles 
into the Congressional Record.

 Black Doctors' Organization Pulls Convention From Seattle, Considers 
                               Baltimore

       Seattle(AP).--A group representing 20,000 black physicians 
     is withdrawing its 2001 convention from Seattle, citing the 
     state's passage in November of an anti-affirmative action 
     initiative.
       ``Such legislative enactment (of Initiative 200) is counter 
     to the basic tenets upon which the National Medical 
     Association was founded more than 100 years ago,'' NMA 
     executive director Lorraine Cole said Tuesday in a statement.
       The association, headquartered in Washington, D.C., will 
     relocate its convention. It listed potential sites as Denver, 
     Miami, Nashville, Orlando, Philadelphia, New York and 
     Baltimore.
       The convention was scheduled for the Washington State 
     Convention Center July 27-Aug. 2, 2001. Between 8,000 and 
     10,000 people usually attend, said NMA spokeswoman Tomeka 
     Rawlings.
       ``It's their loss,'' said John Carlson, of Bellevue, who 
     headed the petition drive to put 1-200 on the ballot.
       ``Unless their organization was founded on the tenets of 
     racial quotas and preferences, they are seriously misreading 
     Initiative 200 because that's all that prohibits,'' he added.
       Mayor Paul Schell plans to ask the association to 
     reconsider, spokeswoman Vivian Phillips said.
       ``He feel it's quite unfortunate,'' Phillips said of the 
     association's action. ``Seattle did not vote in favor of 1-
     200. In fact, it was overwhelmingly defeated in Seattle.''
       The National Association of Black Journalists said before 
     the election that passage of the initiative might be reason 
     for a minority journalists' group to withdraw its conference, 
     scheduled for Seattle this summer.
       However, the group UNITY: Journalists of Color voted two 
     days after the Nov. 3 election to keep the convention in 
     Seattle, despite passage of 1-200. The UNITY '99 conference 
     is scheduled July 7-11 at the Washington State Convention 
     Center.
       The group said in a news release that passage of 1-200 
     ``cries out for the need to educate the public about 
     affirmative action.''
       Besides the NABJ, the UNITY group includes the National 
     Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Native American 
     Journalists Association, and the Asian American Journalists 
     Association. Their memberships total more than 6,000.
       Initiative 200 was approved by nearly 60 percent of the 
     state's voters, but a majority within the city voted no. It 
     bars state and local governments from giving preferential 
     treatment to women and minorities in contracts, jobs or 
     public higher education.
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              What is This Group That Has Embroiled Lott?

       Columbia, S.C. (AP)--Behind a wooden partition in a back 
     room of the Lizard's Thicket restaurant, about 30 members of 
     the Council of Conservative Citizens--many wearing 
     Confederate battle flag pins and belt buckles hovered over 
     plates of fried catfish and chocolate cream pie as Dennis 
     Wheeler laid out the struggle before them.
       Wheeler, a freelance writer from Atlanta opened last week's 
     meeting with a reading from Revelation about the beast that 
     ``opened his mouth in blasphemies against God.'' Among those 
     blasphemies, he told the group, is a ``Yankee radicalism'' 
     known as equalitarianism.
       ``(I)t is exactly this philosophy that our Confederate 
     forefathers fought against in the War Between the States,'' 
     said Wheeler, head of a council chapter in Georgia. ``The 
     current mark of the beast is the equalitarian religion which 
     names as sins racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and homophobia, 
     among others, rather than the Ten Commandments.''
       The only blacks within earshot were the waitresses and 
     busboys working the tables on the other side of the 
     partition.
       Just what is the Council of Conservative Citizens? It was 
     formed 13 years ago, it claims 15,000 members and lately it's 
     been in the news since Sen. Trent Lott and Rep. Bob Barr 
     landed in hot water after it was revealed they had addressed 
     the group.
       But what else? Is it a reincarnation of the old White 
     Citizens Councils, as some suggest? Is it a white supremacist 
     group?
       ``We are not racists,'' insists South Carolina director 
     Frances Bell, citing her American Indian background and 
     noting the group has some Jewish members.
       Is the council merely an organization so devoted to free 
     speech and assembly that it refuses to silence racist or 
     bigoted views?
       The questions have sent Lott, R-Miss., and Barr, R-Ga., 
     scurrying for cover. The chairman of the Republican National 
     Committee has called on GOP members, including national 
     committee member Buddy Witherspoon of Columbia, to quit the 
     organization that calls itself the ``active advocate for the 
     no longer silent conservative majority.''
       Gordon Baum, the St. Louis attorney who runs the group, 
     says attacks on the council--especially by people like law 
     professor Alan Dershowitz--are liberal diversions to take the 
     heat off President Bill Clinton. ``It all has to do with 
     protecting Billy's butt,'' he said.
       ``Why are they so afraid of us?'' Baum said in a telephone 
     interview last week, noting that the council is best known 
     for opposing affirmative action and quotas and defending the 
     Confederate battle flag against those who would remove it 
     from public display.
       He answered his own question: ``Because these are all 
     politically incorrect (stances), and they would prefer that 
     we would not have a voice. I mean, neither the Republicans 
     nor the Democrats will touch these issues, and they're afraid 
     of the people out here's growing discontent with the 
     parties.''
       But to the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who founded the Southern 
     Christian Leadership Conference along with the Rev. Martin 
     Luther King Jr., the group is ``the Ku Klux Klan with a coat 
     and tie.''
       ``What they stand for sounds like just a recycled White 
     Citizens Council,'' the Atlanta preacher said, ``A cocklebur 
     by any other name is just as thorny.''
       In fact, some of the group's original members came from the 
     old Citizens Councils of America, a pro-segregation group 
     formed as a response to the 1954 Supreme Court decision 
     integrating public schools.
       Baum was its Midwest field organizer and Robert ``Tut'' 
     Patterson its founder. Patterson now writes a column for The 
     Citizen Informer newsletter for Baum's group.
       Mark Potok, a researcher for the Southern Poverty Law 
     Center in Montgomery, Ala.,

[[Page E467]]

     said the Council of Conservative Citizens is more dangerous 
     than the KKK or neo-Nazis because it has been ``successfully 
     masquerading as a mainstream conservative organization.''
       ``They're not going to produce a Timothy McVeigh; they are 
     much more interested in genuine political power than in any 
     kind of violence or terrorism,'' Potok said. ``I mean, 
     Timothy McVeigh can kill 168 people, but he is never going 
     to be elected your senator or president or congressman. 
     So, yeah, on a political level they're much more 
     dangerous.''
       Indeed, the group claims as dues-paying members dozens of 
     elected officials, from local school boards to state 
     legislatures. It does not, however, claim ex-Klan leader and 
     sometime GOP candidate David Duke, who caused Baum 
     considerable discomfort in November by showing up at a 
     national board meeting in Jackson, Miss.
       The group's Web site welcomes visitors to ``join the vast 
     right-wing conspiracy!''--an ironic reference to Hillary 
     Clinton's comment about who was behind the impeachment 
     effort--and offers such publications as a pamphlet revealing 
     ``the ugly truth about Martin Luther King.''
       The South Carolina chapters have fought to keep the 
     Confederate battle flag flying over the state capital and 
     criticized The Citadel for not playing ``Dixie'' often enough 
     during functions at the military college.
       ``Being pro-white is not equal to being anti-black,'' said 
     Rebekah Sutherland, an executive committee member from Aiken 
     who ran for state school superintendent last year. ``It's OK 
     to be white, isn't it? That's what this group is about. It's 
     OK to be white.''
       Don MacDermott, a Birmingham, Ala., city councilman and 
     Council of Conservative Citizens member, campaigned with his 
     chapter last year against a proposed 1-cent sales tax that he 
     felt would go to fund ``just a bunch of wish lists for some 
     local bureaucrats.'' He said he wouldn't belong to the 
     organization if he felt it was racist.
       ``The chapter I belong to is definitely not,'' he said. 
     ``They're just some well-grounded beliefs in conservative 
     values. Most of the group I'm involved with were Ronald 
     Reagan supporters in 1976.''
       A.J. Parker, a siding contractor who is director of the 
     group's North Carolina chapter, doesn't like being condemned 
     for the views of a few members.
       ``Why should I pay for deeds that took place 100 years ago, 
     or even 50 years ago?'' he said during a break from burning 
     brush in front of his Asheville home. ``They've tried to 
     identify us with David Duke and people like that, and anybody 
     who speaks out against affirmative action and quotas and 
     immigration, they're automatically tagged with that dirty 
     brush.''
       But critics point to anti-Semitic postings on the group's 
     Web site, and to Informer columns like this from Patterson 
     last fall:
       ``Western civilization with all its might and glory would 
     never have achieved its greatness without the directing hand 
     of God and the creative genius of the white race. Any effort 
     to destroy the race by a mixture of black blood is an effort 
     to destroy Western civilization itself.''
       Baum noted that the Informer has a disclaimer, ``like all 
     newspapers.''
       ``It was there; we can't lie. We did not endorse it,'' he 
     said. ``Our people don't walk in lock step. Organizing 
     conservatives is like herding cats.''
       But Dick Harpootlian, chairman of the South Carolina 
     Democratic Party, offered a different animal analogy: ``Birds 
     of a feather flock together.''
       ``If David Duke and those kinds of folks are showing up at 
     those meetings, they obviously have some interest in them,'' 
     he said.
       ``There's a fight for the heart and soul of the Republican 
     Party. Is it the party of Lincoln or the party of extremes? 
     So far, the extreme's winning.''
       U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., is calling on members of 
     Congress to denounce the Council of Conservative Citizens. 
     ``They can hide behind whatever curtain they want to hide, 
     but we know what they are,'' Wexler said in a telephone 
     interview.
       Baum said the debate has devolved into a kind of '90s 
     McCarthyism, where guilt by association is the order of the 
     day.
       ``Really, Trent Lott's involvement wasn't other than what 
     he would do with any larger constituent group,'' Baum said. 
     ``I mean, to us it's sending a signal that any political 
     figure should not meet with conservatives. I mean, they did 
     this with the Christian Coalition; they did it with the pro-
     life movement. They've tried to demonize them.''
       The Council of Conservative Citizens meeting last Saturday 
     in Columbia was supposed to be open. But when members learned 
     an Associated Press reporter planned to attend, the executive 
     board voted to close the partition.
       ``They're all afraid,'' Mrs. Bell said. ``People are afraid 
     they'll lose their job if their name comes out.''
       But Wheeler exhorted the back-room crowd to ``look at our 
     duty. . . .
       ``The war for the hearts and the minds of the people must 
     be won before the political war can be won.''
                               __________
                               

  Defendants Deny Woman's Claim of Racial Discrimination in House Deal

       Indianola, Miss. (AP)--The defendants in a federal racial 
     discrimination lawsuit have asked the U.S. District court to 
     dismiss the case.
       The suit, filed by Sunflower County assistant district 
     attorney Felecia Lockhart, claims Community Bank of Indianola 
     and others conspired in 1995 to prevent her from purchasing a 
     home in a predominantly white neighborhood. Lockhart is 
     black.
       Defendants include Community Bancshares of Mississippi, 
     which does business as Community Bank of Mississippi; Freddie 
     J. Bagley, the bank's president in Indianola; Thomas Colbert 
     and James T. Mood.
       In documents filed this week, the defendants denied any 
     wrongdoing and asked that the lawsuit seeking $1.5 million in 
     damages be dismissed. Lockhart brought the action following 
     an unsuccessful attempt to purchase the house from Mood, an 
     officer at the bank in Indianola, and his wife.
       Lockhart claims Mood was coerced into breaching the 
     contract to sell the House and that, specifically, ``certain 
     shareholders and/or directors'' of the bank were objecting to 
     the deal.
       In seeking dismissal, the defendants said they had dealt 
     with Lockhart at all times in a non-discriminatory manner.
       They claim Lockhart wrote a letter to Mood wrongfully 
     accusing him of breach of contract, demanding repairs he 
     could not pay for and demanding he compensate her for more 
     than $2,800 of unspecified expenses in the sale contract.
       Defendants also maintain that Mood was warned that 
     ``further steps'' would be taken if he failed to hand over 
     the more than $2,800.
       They also said none of Mood's superiors at the bank ``ever 
     said one word to him about attempting to get out of the sale, 
     much less coerced or sought to pressure him.''

     

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