Comments on: Civil-Rights Era Klan Murderer Dies in Prison

By: MrsCaptJack

MrsCaptJack — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 23:33:53 +0000

I wish there was a “like” button here for your post, Ellyn. What a horrible way to exist. And what a truly horrid thing to realize ~ that even now this type of hatred and violence is still an everyday factor in someone’s life.

By: Ellyn James

Ellyn James — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 21:25:16 +0000

I was a Jr in high school in Mississippi in 1964.
I remember how scary it was then and the pit in my stomach during those years, but what I remember the most was the alert eyes, the fearful eyes, and the bowed heads of the blacks around me. I was sick to my stomach then because I realized where I was living, what I was living in: the state of hate, Mississippi. It was a closed society and stilll is to a great degree. What you see is not what is going on there; there is always an undercurrent, an undertow.

I see the hate now and hear it now – in the mainstream!They use the same buzz words and the hate is still as repulsive. The hate still gives me a pit in my stomach now just as it did then.

I have returned to the “outskirts” of the South yet I am afraid to publish my real name with what I write here because I live alone. There are still crazy and hateful people here. They still take great sport in intimidating other whites if they think they can get away with it. Blacks still have to watch themselves and still have to teach their children how to avoid “problems.” We have only come far in the South on the outside, but from the inside, hate is alive and active.

It concerns me that the same John Birch Society and many factions of the klan and neo-nazi elements are still active; they are both dressed up in all kinds of disguises and blantantly in the open. It is a shame that mental health does not exist in these groups.

Some people here rather be Far Right than Free. Some people think they are better than others because of their skin color and culture. Some people think they are smarter or have some kind of right to be bulllies and have to hate to justify their own existence.; All of these are very dangerous and scary, twisted people.

Thank you, Morris Dees and Joe Levin for the Southern Poverty Law Center! Your courageous and dedicated work transends all expectations that I had for your struggle against the hate that these dying cowards stood for.
If only the hate would die with them.

By: Jonas Rand

Jonas Rand — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 05:16:43 +0000

“Just as U.S. troops fought to keep us free from Communist tyranny during the Vietnam War…”

Actually, they didn’t. There was no threat to the US posed by the Vietnamese; it was American imperialism and a people fighting back, pure and simple.

By: Sheldon L. McCormick

Sheldon L. McCormick — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 06:39:18 +0000

If their is any consolation over the death of ex-Klansman James Seale, 76, for the white supremacist1964 torture- murders two innocent young African-American men, it should be this; at least a Klan murderer didn’t die a free man. Others like him were punished by the law and suffered the same fate. Others were punished by fate, in do time. And because of the good will and courage and sacrifce of many men and women during the Civil Rights era, some at the cost of their own lives, America is a freer nation. Blacks today have rights, opportunities and liberties that would have been laughable then. We even have a black President of the United States, Barrack Obama. Racism still exist, but is no longer the offical law of the land. Just as U.S. troops fought to keep us free from Communist tyranny during the Vietnam War and other conflicts before and since, the civil rights activists, known and unknown and in various ways, did the same. That is worth rejoycing.

By: Jonas Rand

Jonas Rand — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 23:12:21 +0000

The Tea Party is racist? Prove it!

And what about “our country” does it threaten to derail? The people/civil society and the government both can be spoken of as “our country”, both speak in “our country”’s name, but represent two very different things. I feel that it threatens to undermine legitimate grievances for astroturfing. If the people who actually attend Tea Party rallies are anything like Teabagger politicians, though, they are worse than Ronald Reagan, who at least knew when to stop cutting federal spending.

By: Reynardine

Reynardine — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:07:20 +0000

The murderer has died; his credo has not. The Tea Party uprising which threatens to derail our country is a direct function of racism, opportunistcally fanned by the Goebbels (whoops) Murdoch propaganda machine and what now passes for the Republican party. Viz: Rep. Lamborn’s comment that being associated with the President is like touching a tarbaby. When called on it, utterers of these remarks first whistle and say, “Oh, nothing”, and when further confronted, say their accusers are “playing the race card”, but the bigoted dogs hear their dogwhistles very well. It’s time these dogwhistle political tactics were addressed, here and elsewhere.