OpenLeft: Haley Barbour rewrites civil rights history with more at stake than Glenn Beck

[marmar]

Haley Barbour rewrites civil rights history with more at stake than Glenn Beck
by: Paul Rosenberg

Wed Sep 15, 2010 at 10:30


Even more than Glenn Beck, Haley Barbour has a vested interest in rewriting the history of the civil rights struggle, since he was on the wrong side, inflaming racial resentment as an operative in Nixon's notorious "Southern Strategy" to bring racist whites into the GOP in 1968--a legacy he needs to spin into its opposite as he positions himself for a potential run against Barack Obama in 2012. His strategy has been to portray Southern Republicans of his generation as the exact opposite of what they were--as post-racial progressives in contract to the older generation of Democrats.

The reality, of course, is that his main mission was getting those older Democrats to vote for Nixon, regardless how they were registered. But that overwhelming historical fact is not what's causing him headaches right now. The GOP has long since mastered the art of the big lie. It's the little things that are tripping up, as he tries to reinvent his own personal history as someone who lived in a 21st Century post-racial bubble in the midst of the bloody racial violence of 1960s Mississippi.

Margaret Talev of McClatchy reports:

Haley Barbour, race, Ole Miss - from black perspective

WASHINGTON - It's hard to believe that Haley Barbour and Verna Bailey attended the same University of Mississippi in 1965, and even sat next to each other in a class.

Barbour, who's now the governor of Mississippi and a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, recalls that time - when Ole Miss was being forced to integrate - as "a very pleasant experience."

Bailey does not. At times, she said, "I thought my life was going to end."

He's white. She was the first black female to attend.

Their seats were assigned alphabetically, and he said they developed a friendly rapport. She let him copy her notes when he skipped class.

"I still love her," he quipped.

He remembers her name almost as if it were yesterday, though he'd recalled her middle name as Lee. It's Ann.

She knows Barbour as a prominent politician who attended her alma mater. Until a reporter called, she said, she didn't realize they'd met.

Their vastly different impressions of that time expose the challenges that any Southern conservative faces when trying to recast the experience of the civil rights era. They could prove especially sensitive for this white Republican governor of the blackest state in the union if he mounts a challenge to the nation's first black president.

Race isn't the only thing for Barbour to deal with, the story notes, but...

Still, the story of race in Mississippi is an inescapable undercurrent in weighing Barbour's prospects. Nowhere was the civil rights era of Barbour's adolescence more violent than it was in Mississippi. When James Meredith became the first black student to enroll at Ole Miss in 1962, there were threats that he'd be lynched. U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sent U.S. marshals to protect Meredith as he arrived on campus. Ensuing riots wounded more than 100 marshals and left two bystanders dead.

Barbour's a veteran political operative who worked on Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign, which designed a Republican path to power known as the "Southern strategy." As he recently began testing the presidential waters, Barbour, 62, has been contending that his generation of white, Southern Republicans has been characterized unfairly as anti-civil rights.

In an interview last month with the conservative magazine and website Human Events, Barbour said it was "my generation who went to integrated schools. I went to an integrated college, never thought twice about it."

It was the old Democrats who clung to segregation, he said. "By my time people realized that was the past, that was indefensible, wasn't going to be that way anymore." He said that "the people who really changed the South from Democrat to Republican (were) a different generation from those who fought integration."

Of course, there are photographs, even videotapes that directly contradict Barbour's lies. Young men are always prime candidates for acting out group-oriented violence, and 1960s white Mississippi was anything but an exception to this rule. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.openleft.com/diary/20159/haley-barbour-rewrites-civil-rights-history-with-more-at-stake-than-glenn-beck

[SargeUNN]

1. well Barbour's version will carry the day because

as I found out, we don't bother, even on our side, to get first hand experiences even when they are available and announced before time. I grew up in Mississippi during Jim Crow and this past Sunday I did a 30 min. recollection of my experience during the time Barbour was talking about. I gave names and while the more personal parts can't be checked, the more public parts of my story could be which included a well known person in the form of Walter Payton. I announced it on friday and when the show aired not one person from here tuned in of the over 100 who saw it. If we can't find interest enough to hear a first hand account of the event, then we avoid a first hand account and turn up buying false info. One person here even wrongly stated that no black teachers after the merger of the schools were poorly trained, even though I gave an example of a black teacher I had that was poor and while a nice guy, was one of the worse if not worse teachers I ever had. It wasn't because he didn't care, it was because he came from the old system so his education was below what the white teachers had. Yet, not one from here tuned in even with the 2 day advanced notice. That is why we keep getting our message taken away because we don't support our own that well and then wonder why the media doesn't tell us more.

[Iterate]

3. You have more influence than you think.

I know I've always appreciated you stories even though I've never replied. I have your Mississippi post bookmarked for later.

It does seem sometimes that even people here are afflicted by fast news cycle mindset. Some of the very hot topics only last a few days. Some have lives upset by one damned thing after another. But there are also more than a few who take a longer view and want to hear the first-hand stories. I'm one of them.

Oh, and Barbour can go to hell.

[burnsei sensei]

2. How dare he.

Quote:
Barbour, who's now the governor of Mississippi and a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, recalls that time - when Ole Miss was being forced to integrate - as "a very pleasant experience."

Bailey does not. At times, she said, "I thought my life was going to end."
end quote.

This was one of the most intense periods in American history. There is nothing pleasant in the kind of tension, horror and death that was perpetrated in Mississippi. I've studied the era and the events, and it perplexes me to no end how anyone could call it "pleasant."