 |
| Author | Post |
|---|
ThusSpokethMe
Member
|
Posted: Sun Jun 26th, 2005 12:41 am |
|
The following is a transcript from Anderson Cooper 360. It aired this past Friday I think. I will highlight some of the more interesting parts.
COOPER: Tonight, the final act to one of the ugliest chapters in America's fight for racial equality is over. This man, Edgar Ray Killen, was sentenced in Philadelphia, Mississippi, today to 60 years in jail for masterminding the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers.
The 80-year-old Killen was a former KKK member. He showed no emotion when the sentence was read.
And these were his victims. Take a look. Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney. All three men were ambushed on a Mississippi road, shot to death, buried under 15 feet of earth by a bulldozer. Their bodies were found 44 days later.
You know, the trial of Edgar Ray Killen opens up a lot of old wounds. It also shines a cold, hard light on the past. And certainly much has changed since the '60s, but some things, sadly, seem to stay the same.
During the trial, Philadelphia's former mayor, Harlan Majure, told the jury the KKK did a lot of good. Said they were a peaceful organization.
Now, we don't take sides on 360, but we do care about the facts. The truth does matter.
So I talked to the former mayor earlier this week. And what he says, well, you got to hear for yourself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Why do you believe the Ku Klux Klan at any time in their history was a peaceful organization and did a lot of good?
HARLAN MAJURE, FORMER MAYOR OF PHILADELPHIA, MISSISSIPPI: Because when I was a small child, in the mid-'30s and during the Depression years, my daddy worked at a little country store and made $2 or $3 a day. At night, when he would come in from being at that store, he would say, well, the Klan was busy over the weekend. And he was not a member of the Klan, none of our family have ever been a member of the Klan.
But he'd say they went by to see whoever, so-and-so, because if there was anybody in the community, of the neighbors, that would not take care of the family, too sorry to work, or waste their money and not take care of the wife and the children, the Klan would pay them a visit. If there was somebody in the neighborhood that was messing around somebody's house, or with somebody else's wife, the Klan would pay them a visit. And they visited more white people, and they whipped more white people than they did black people. This was, like I said, in the '30s.
COOPER: Are you kidding? Do you know that the U.S. Senate just apologized for their role in not preventing the lynchings of several thousand African-Americans going back more than 100 years, 4,700 lynchings that happened between 1882 and 1968?
MAJURE: No. I'm not aware of that.
COOPER: You were a twice-elected official. Don't you have responsibility to be aware of the history, not only of your town and your -- and -- but the country we live in? I mean, shouldn't -- if you're going make comments about the Ku Klux Klan, shouldn't you read some history books about it?
MAJURE: Well, I didn't plan to be making any comments about it. I was summoned to be up there. I didn't believe even that the people were killed. I thought it was a publicity stunt until later on, and the -- while they were looking for them, the FBI and whoever else were having a search party. Then I realized that it had actually happened. But I didn't believe it before that.
COOPER: You thought at the time that James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, that it was a publicity stunt by...
MAJURE: Exactly. You're right. Uh-huh And it should not have happened. I -- we were never in favor of that type of an operation. We wasn't in favor of what they did coming down here. But certainly not killing anybody. That's wrong.
COOPER: You're saying, you're, you're, you, they should not have been killed, but they shouldn't have come down there?
MAJURE: Well, I'm saying that the people that were responsible for their death was the people that organized them, wherever, whatever towns they were in. I think one of them, two of them, were from New York City. They should have been properly trained and expected more or less what you come into, and to try to change the tradition one summer that had been going on for hundred and maybe thousands of years, it just doesn't happen.
COOPER: I'm sorry, sir. I really try to be respectful of all my guests, and I respect you and your position, but you just said that these three men, who were murdered in the dead of night and buried in an unmarked grave and just abandoned, and, you know, bulldozered over -- you said the people who were responsible for their deaths are the people who sent them there to do voter registration, not the actual people who pulled the triggers?
MAJURE: Well, I'll say they were responsible for them, without schooling them, without properly training them, without giving them proper protection when they come down here, because they should have known they were coming into a hostile environment. It would have happened in any city, in any state. Where are you? Where am I talking to you?
COOPER: New York City.
MAJURE: All right. If I recruited a group of young people, and I have two granddaughters that would be the right age for that now, to go in and say, We're going to clean up the drugs, the prostitution, the money laundering, the gang wars, and stuff like that, in the city of New York, we're just going to move in and take over, because that stuff is illegal, and it was when I was up there in the military. Do you think we'd see the sunrise the next morning if we went in there, forcibly, changing that?
COOPER: Sir, it's just sad that in this day and age, you're comparing people who came down to try to help African-Americans who were living in your community and had been there for hundreds of years, people who had the right to vote, and couldn't vote, and weren't being allowed to vote, and weren't being allowed to sit at lunch counters, you're comparing people who came down to help those people to someone, like, trying to root, root, you know, root out drug dealers and killers and rapists?
MAJURE: No, I'm comparing the situation. They were uninvited. They should -- we were making progress down here. It was slow, and it wasn't at the speed that the federal government, and wasn't at the speed of whoever these were that organized this wanted to.
COOPER: Well, whoever these were -- you know, the National -- the NAACP. I mean, you say as if these three people came down were aliens from outer space. I mean, yes, two of them were from New York. But you know what? James Chaney was from Meridian, Mississippi. And that's where, that's where my grandmother's from, that's where my dad was born in Quitman, Mississippi, not too far from where you are right now.
And I got to tell you, you know, what's wrong with someone from Meridian, Mississippi, an African-American, saying, I want to be able to vote?
MAJURE: Not anything wrong with it, far as I'm concerned. The timing was bad. And we were more or less invaded. But it's just like I said, if I did the same thing in New York City, they wouldn't see the sunrise, and you know that.
COOPER: When was the right timing to give African-Americans the vote?
MAJURE: I don't have the answer to that question. There is no way I could.
COOPER: You testified that Mr. Killen is a good guy, basically. You were testifying to his character. Do you still think he's a good guy now that the jury's said he's responsible for manslaughter?
MAJURE: Oh, this should not have happened, and evidently he was probably part of it, because I didn't hear the testimonies. But there's no way that you can answer all these questions that you asked, because this is history. And it was history in the making. They should have known they were going to run into a hostile situation when they came in. But they should not have been killed. I never thought that.
COOPER: Well, sir, I appreciate you coming on the program and giving us your perspective, and we do appreciate it. Mayor Harlan Majure, appreciate it very much, sir.
MAJURE: All right, thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That was the two-time elected mayor of Philadelphia, Mississippi.
I should point out that an awful lot of people would argue that three people come down to a town where they know it's going to be a hostile situation, where they know their lives are in danger, and yet they come down anyway to help other people, those people are heroes, not interlopers.
|
ThusSpokethMe
Member
|
Posted: Sun Jun 26th, 2005 12:43 am |
|
| Granted most conservatives are good people, and regardless of the language they sometimes use, I don't think they are racists. But a large chunk of the GOP is now made up these old, ignorant people. It kind of troubles me.
|
macarion
Member
|
Posted: Sun Jun 26th, 2005 12:53 am |
|
![[mad]](/forums/themes/default/madani.gif)
|
ThusSpokethMe
Member
|
Posted: Sun Jun 26th, 2005 12:55 am |
|
macarion wrote:
That guy is a moron. He said some of the most inane stuff, like, "this stuff has been going on for hundreds, IF NOT THOUSANDS of years around here." Yea, the South has only had white people in it for 400 years.
|
Current time is 11:43 am | |
|
|
|
|
