On Jesse Helms, A Valid Counterpoint From The C-J.

Read the C-J here, but below is an important excerpt:

… The voice of racism

Former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms died over the Fourth of July holiday. He once said that it's for others to judge his legacy, but this much is clear: He was on the wrong side of history.

"He was unrepentant to the end," said Duke University political science professor Kerry Haynie. "He'll be remembered, in part, for the strong racist streak that articulated his politics and almost all of his political campaigns -- they were racialized in the most negative ways." And Mr. Haynie noted that, unlike George Wallace and Strom Thurmond, Mr. Helms never repented those tactics.

Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, understood this history all too well when he perfunctorily acknowledged the Senator's death. According to the C-J:

Mr. McConnell carefully described him "a Senator whose stature in Congress had few equals" and "a leading voice and courageous champion for the many causes he believed in."

YES, causes he believed in indeed to count people like me as being less than human, excluded from the '[a]ll men are created equal" proclamation of our Founding Fathers". But the C-J is correct when it describes the Senator as thus:

He was indeed a pivotal figure who helped separate the national GOP from its legacy as the party of Abraham Lincoln and civil rights, welcome segregation's defenders and make the party an uncomfortable home for Northeastern progressives and Midwestern moderates.

Not just those in the Northeast or Midwest; some of us residing in the Southeast, too.

Update: I am supporter of Senator Mitch McConnell's, but his eulogy states that Jesse Helm is "not a bigot" leaves me SAD and CONFLICTED -- he should have left that statement unsaid and the subject unattended:

Frankly, I don't know whether to laugh or cry!