After 7 Days, Gov. Barbour Denounces Proposed License Plate Honoring KKK Leader

Jason Attermann — February 22, 2011 – 4:45 pm | Civil Rights | Election 2012 | Republicans Comments (1) Add a comment

In an interview on Monday, Governor Haley Barbour (R-MS) went back on his original words and repositioned himself against the proposed license plate honoring Confederate General and former KKK leader Nathan Bedford Forrest.

As Politico reported:

‘The bureaucracy denied it, the legislature won’t pass it and if the legislature passes it, it won’t become law because I won’t sign it,’ Barbour told the Associated Press in an interview - a change from when he had earlier declined to take a position against the measure.

The plate proposal, backed by the Mississippi Sons of Confederate Veterans, would honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who went on to become a leader in the Ku Klux Klan.

And:

Forrest, a Tennessee native, is revered by some as a military genius and despised by others for leading an 1864 massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tenn. Forrest was a Ku Klux Klan grand wizard in Tennessee after the war, the AP reported.

The flap over the plate is the latest in a series of racial issues that Barbour has had to confront in recent months - problems that could cast a shadow over his presidential aspirations. He ran into trouble when he told the Weekly Standard that growing up in Civil Rights-era Mississippi wasn’t ‘that bad,’ and defended his hometown Yazoo City’s White Citizens’ Council for keeping the KKK out of town.

Since the NAACP first requested a public denouncement of the plate on February 14^th, it has taken Barbour 7 days to reverse his initial position and support a veto of the legislation.

As we and others have stated, Barbour’s inability to instinctively and reflexively reject the proposed legislation further disqualifies him as a representative for all Americans, including Jews, and demonstrates his unpreparedness for higher office.

 

 

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