Center exposes {GOP} judicial candidate's visit to white supremacist group

[Sapphire Blue]

(Note: Also posted in GD: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2091808)

From the Southern Poverty Law Center...

Center exposes judicial candidate's visit to white supremacist group

The Center has revealed that an Alabama judicial candidate appeared this past summer at a meeting of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), despite claiming previously that she had never heard of the group.

Terri Willingham Thomas, currently a district judge in Cullman County, is the Republican nominee for the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals.

The Montgomery Advertiser first reported Thomas' family ties to the Ku Klux Klan and CCC, both of which have been identified as hate groups by the Center, on Aug. 28. The story revealed that her mother, Violet Willingham, was arrested in August 1979 for transporting guns with an expired permit at a Klan march in Montgomery and that her father, Joe Willingham, received a national appreciation award from the CCC in 1993. In that article, Thomas denied having ever heard of the CCC.

But the Center's Intelligence Project, which tracks hate groups, found a photograph of Willingham recently attending a CCC monthly meeting in Cullman. The photo, in the group's May-June newsletter, shows CCC director Leonard Wilson urging members to support Thomas in her July 18 runoff election, which she won.

"The Council of Conservative Citizens is widely known as a crudely racist group," said Heidi Beirich, deputy director of the Intelligence Project. "It's very hard to believe that Ms. Thomas was not aware of the nature of this group when she attended a meeting."

Continued @ http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?site_area=1&aid=212

GOP candidate at racist group
The Associated Press
Published on September 4, 2006

Cullman County District Judge Terri Willingham Thomas, a Republican candidate for the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals, was recently photographed at a meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens, considered a racist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Thomas told the Montgomery Advertiser that she doesn't know anything about the organization and only attended the meeting to hear a history lesson on Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. <...>

Thomas faces Democrat Jim McFerrin, a Birmingham attorney, in the general election Nov. 7.

The Advertiser reported last month that Thomas' mother, Violet Willingham, was arrested in August 1979 for transporting guns with an expired permit at a Ku Klux Klan march in Montgomery and that her father, Joe Willingham, received an award from the Council of Conservative Citizens in 1993.

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/hatewatch/item.jsp?hid=1109

[Broken_Hero]

1. Good find

I hope people in Bama see this...