Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has issued a statement about his remarks in The Weekly Standard about race and white Citizens Councils. The Republican lawmaker said he accurately depicted the role of the Yazoo City, Miss. leadership at that time. "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 at that time," Barbour said.
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Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's comments in a new magazine profile are focusing attention once again on race.
The 63-year-old Barbour, a Republican, was asked what he remembered about growing up in his hometown of Yazoo City, Miss., during the 1960s civil rights era. Barbour told The Weekly Standard: "I just don't remember it being that bad."
When asked why Yazoo City managed to integrate public schools without any violence, as other Southern cities encountered, Barbour responded that his hometown did so because the town's business leaders "wouldn't stand for it."
"You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders," Haley told writer Andrew Ferguson. "In Yazoo City, they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their a-- run out of town."
Barbour's comments were a small part of the profile, which was largely devoted to his political successes, including helping elect more GOP governors in states such has Ohio in the 2010 midterm elections. Barbour is also often touted as a presidential prospect.
Derrick Johnson, president of the Mississippi NAACP, called Barbour's comments "beyond disturbing."
Dan Turner, Barbour's spokesman, pushed back at any suggestion that the governor is racist in an interview Monday with the website Talking Points Memo.
"You're trying to paint the governor as a racist," Turner said. "And nothing could be further from the truth."
