Old Times There Are Not Forgotten

I haven’t been following the latest Mississippi racist retrial all that closely, but app arently they just returned a verdict of guilty of manslaughter rather than murder, an alternate charge that was added at the last minute. I’ll be interested to hear the reasoning. (It may have just been because the defendant is so old.)

Apparently, his lawyers used the “old news” and “looking forward, not backward,” defense. Not that I blame the lawyer. He’s just doing his job. But it is ironic because one of the things I really love about right wingers is how they castigate others for being irresponsible and unaccountable while refusing to ever admit they were wrong. They’re still defending McCarthy fergawdsake. Nixon’s a hero and Deepthroat a traitor. They will never, ever, accept responsibility for anything. When someone catches up with them it’s always a call to “move on” and “stop living in the past.”

I googled Killan, the ex-clansman, and found this interview by Richard Barrett, one of the state’s most famous white supremicists from 2004:

Barrett: What about your background?

Killen: I have pastored churches all through Neshoba County for over fifty years. I am well thought of by most everyone. I have taken part in many political campaigns, especially for Ross Barnett and “Big Jim” Eastland. I have a big picture of Barnett hanging on my wall. I would get up and give speeches for candidates and organize speakings. One told me that he didn’t even need to show up, so long as I was speaking for him. I have been encouraged to run for office, myself.

Barrett: Is there someone you most admire?

Killen: “Big Jim” Eastland. I used to go to see him a lot. The security guards would always let me in. I got stopped for speeding on the way to his house, one time, and the patrolman just waved me through. We would talk a lot and he would say that he would do anything he could for me. He was a powerful man and could bottle up laws that were wrong. He even told me that Bobby Kennedy once asked him to pick someone to succeed J. Edgar Hoover, because his brother was fixing to fire Hoover. When “Big Jim” said that he was supporting Hoover, no matter what, Bobby came back and said that he gave in. Hoover stayed on.

Barrett: You were put on trial, once, over trying to keep Communists out of Mississippi.

Killen: Old John Doar kept staring at me, like he was trying to look right through me. I stared right back at him and sent him a signal that made him mad. He was really mad when he could not convict me. During the trial, I wrote a note for my lawyer, Laurel Weir, to bring up about the plan by Negroes to rape white women that Summer. He did and the judge rebuked him for it, but the point got made.

John Sugg, the reporter who is covering the trial for Truthout, wrote about Barrett, the other day:

Later Wednesday, I ran into Richard Barrett, the paragon of Mississippi white supremacists. He was handing out his booklet, From Southern to American around the courthouse. The screed argues that blacks should be airlifted back to Africa, among other innovative solutions to social ills. Oh, despite his Southern nationalism, he’s a New Yorker by birth, but what the hell.

Barrett, when not championing the virtues of being white – he’s a ubiquitous figure in the state’s fringe politics – is a lawyer. From a distance, he looks the part. Closer, his suit is a little threadbare and needs dry cleaning. His tie is stained. But bright and shiny is a lapel pin – a cross with four sharp points, symbol of his “Nationalist Movement.”

“Killen asked me to represent him,” Barrett says, “but I didn’t think he was competent.”

I can’t resist, and ask: Is that why he wanted you?”

Barrett: “Hah!”

Barrett also says that he would have put on a “political trial,” and he didn’t know if Killen would have allowed that.

I ask Barrett to explain “political trial.”

“Take a choice,” he replies. “It’s either Watts and Detroit” – referring to race riots – “or Highway 515, peaceful farms and churches.”

State Road 515 is where the three civil rights workers – Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney – were murdered by the Klan. Barrett elaborated, contending the brief violence resulted in community tranquility. I rolled my eyes and said, “C’mon,” and he retorted, “It’s true.”

“Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney came here saying they wanted to register Negroes to vote,” Barrett says. “What they really wanted was to run white people out of the county. They did that in Jackson, where I live. Last election, there wasn’t anyone I could vote for.”

I ask: No one on the ballot?”

Barrett: “No, I mean there were no white people on the ballot.”

As he walks away, he throws out a quicky: “They were not civil and they weren’t right. They were communists and they were wrong.”

Nice. I’m sure these are pretty much fringe people in today’s Mississippi. But I would bet you money that the pro-lynching faction in the Senate is actually giving cover to Trent Lott, the former majority leader who still has some favors to call in. He’s the reigning political leader of the neo-confederates. These are his people.

Update: Here’s a nice op-ed by Mississippi writer Mitch Cohen on this very subject. Jesus, decent southerners must be getting tired of this crap.

.