Civil Rights Groups Say They’re Just Getting Started

Civil Rights Groups Say They’re Just Getting Started
By Darryl Fears – The Washington Post
WASHINGTON–When Sen. Trent Lott crumpled to the canvas after taking a beating over his remarks, civil rights leaders and black politicians who fought to knock the Mississippi Republican down did not celebrate but looked to broaden their attack to the rest of his party.
Acting almost as one, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and other groups sent a flurry of telephone calls, faxes and e-mail announcements saying that Lott’s resignation from the Senate leadership might have changed the party’s face, but not its soul.
”The record shows that the issues of race and civil rights are much bigger than the resignation of Senator Lott,” said Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a senior member of the black caucus and an icon of the civil rights movement. ”The American people are looking to see a change in Congress that goes beyond a shift in the current Senate Republican leadership.”
Lewis and Rainbow Coalition leader Jesse Jackson, in keeping with their Baptist traditions, forgave Lott as his troubles mounted in the last two weeks. But both men also condemned Lott’s words as well as his politics, and after he resigned they reaffirmed their belief that his actions reflected his party’s agenda.
Shortly after Lewis made his statement, the NAACP’s media machine placed calls to reporters to say that the voting record of Republican Sen. Bill Frist (Tenn.), who is the lone candidate to replace Lott when GOP senators vote Monday, is not much different from Lott’s.
In fact, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said, each of Lott’s potential successors–Frist and Sens. Don Nickles (Ohla.), Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Rick Santorum (Pa.)–had civil rights voting records similar to their departing leader. The NAACP gave each an ”F” grade for voting against its issues more than 75 percent of the time in the 107th Congress.
”This is a good first step for the Republican Party,” Mfume said of Lott’s departure. ”Now they’ve got to reverse four decades of dependence on racist elements in their base. They can do this by embracing the generally accepted remedies for racial discrimination and by replacing the rhetoric of outreach with the reality.”
The concerns were not limited to African Americans. ”There are questions in the minds of minorities about the makeup and the soul of the Republican Party,” said Hector Flores, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens. ”Is this a party for everyone? We shouldn’t be having this conversation today, in 2002.”
Even as the condemnations flew, another racially charged declaration by a Republican was revealed. In a recent interview with a Charlotte newspaper, Rep. Cass Ballenger of North Carolina said that ”in some areas of the South, in Charlotte and everywhere else, there are people who get rubbed the wrong way and think, ‘We’ve got to bend over backwards; we’ve got to integrate’ and things like that.”
Ballenger also said of outgoing Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), who is black, ”If I had to listen to her, I probably would have developed a little bit of a segregationist feeling,” and he called her a ”bitch.” He later apologized, saying, ”My choice of words to express distaste for a divisive member of Congress was a mistake and was wrong.”
The Lott and Ballenger episodes reflect why many minorities, particularly African Americans and Latinos, are deeply concerned about the GOP’s motives when it comes to equal rights.
”It deepens in the minds of people that conservatism is a cover for racist feelings,” Ron Walters, a University of Maryland political science professor who specializes in black leadership, said of Ballenger’s remarks.
”The same attention is not going to be paid to him as Lott because he’s not the head of the Senate,” Walters said, ”but these comments by Republicans have been made all along at all levels of government and haven’t received the proper spotlight. I blame the media for this. It’s given them a wide berth for all of this stuff.”
On Dec. 5, when Lott praised Sen. Strom Thurmond’s segregationist 1948 presidential campaign during a 100th birthday party for the South Carolina Republican, he enraged both liberal and conservative African Americans. Afterward, his repeated apologies and denunciation of his segregationist past could not erase his votes against a Civil Rights Act extension, school busing, Martin Luther King Day and FBI investigations of hate crimes.
As Lott’s remarks became widely known, civil rights organizations began working in concert to help speed his demise as incoming Senate majority leader. Members of the black caucus pushed the Democratic leadership to react. On Wednesday, as pressure mounted on Lott to resign, the Black Leadership Forum, which includes the NAACP, the Urban League and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, met in Washington to discuss strategies.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., president-elect of the Congressional Black Caucus, said his organization would take a serious look at the Republican voting record in the next Congress and pay close attention to White House judicial nominations.
”I think Trent Lott gave the Republican Party an opportunity to look at itself,” Cummings said. ”If there is a new consciousness, then synchronize this new consciousness with your conduct. Show me that you want progress, that you want a progressive agenda. The words are not enough.”