MS Gov. Clarifies Civil Rights Comments
JACKSON, MS - A day after Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour sparked criticism by comments he made about his experiences growing up in the south during the civil rights era, he issued the following statement to clarify those remarks: "When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns' integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn't tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the 'Citizens Council,' is totally indefensible, as is segregation. It was a difficult and painful era for Mississippi, the rest of the country, and especially African Americans who were persecuted in that time."
