The Ku Klux Klan went broke and disbanded during World War Two. James Colescott, their Imperial Wizard at the time, blamed FDR (“the nigger lover”) and Henry Morgenthau, Jr. (“that Jew”) for orchestrating his organization’s demise. In truth, though, it was the Internal Revenue Service that came calling with a bill for $685,305 in unpaid taxes.
I want you to know that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III had nothing to do with this. He wasn’t even born until two years after the second iteration of the Klan closed up shop.
When it was announced that Sessions would be the nominee to serve as Attorney General, the right-wing alt-right wingnut media was ready with their talking points, which were heavy on the idea that Sessions is the farthest thing from a Klansman that you ever saw and that he’s actually responsible for singlehandedly crushing the Klan to death. Even Erick Erickson got into the game, informing us that “The media wants you to think Jeff Sessions is some sort of Alabamian unrepentant racist, but in fact Jeff Sessions has a long history of fighting segregation in Alabama, seeking the death penalty for KKK members, and marching with civil rights leaders to commemorate and honor the 50th anniversary of the march at Selma.”
On that whole seeking the death penalty for KKK members thing, I’m having just a wee bit of trouble verifying that. You see, it’s a reference to the conviction and ultimate execution of Henry Francis Hays. On March 21st, 1981, Hays and two coconspirators kidnapped Michael Donald off a Mobile, Alabama street and lynched him. The United States Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama at the time was Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, which must have been a great comfort to Michael’s mother, Beulah Mae Donald.
At first, the investigation went in a very Alabama kind of way:
The Mobile police chief was certain from the very beginning that the Klansmen were involved. Despite that, the police soon arrested three young men they described as ”junkie types.”
The whole junkie thing didn’t really fly because junkies aren’t known for hanging black people up in trees down the street from their mother’s house, and Michael didn’t use drugs. So, the District Attorney for Alabama asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation for some help. That investigation “produced no useful evidence, however, and it seemed that the killers would go unpunished.”
We’re quite a way down the road here and we still have not seen an appearance by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. We will hear now from his assistant:
The FBI investigated and was ready to close its investigation, but Thomas Figures, the Assistant U.S. Attorney in Mobile, asked the Dept. of Justice to authorize a second investigation and worked closely with FBI agent James Bodman. His brother Michael Figures, a state senator and civil rights activist, served as an attorney to Beulah Mae Donald and also encouraged the investigation. Two and a half years later in 1983, Henry Hays and James Knowles were arrested. Knowles confessed to Bodman in 1983, and additional evidence was revealed during the civil trial initiated by Donald’s mother Beulah Mae Donald in 1984. As a result, in 1988 Benjamin Franklin Cox, Jr., a truckdriver, was indicted as an accomplice in the criminal case. Henry’s father Bennie Hays was also indicted in Donald’s murder.
There are two things I want you to take away from that blockquote above. First, the third iteration of the Ku Klux Klan was ruined by Beulah Mae Donald’s civil case which resulted in a $7 million judgment in her favor. She wound up owning the KKK’s Tuscaloosa headquarters. And all-white jury gave it to her, too, which she didn’t expect.
“When the trial was over, the jurors came down and told me, as people do, that they felt for me,” she says. ”But the verdict didn’t make me feel better. What happened to Michael — I live it day and night. I was just surprised that a white jury could do this.”
Second, where have we heard that name “Thomas Figures” before?
In 1986, Session’s nomination for a federal judgeship was rejected after one of his former subordinates, Thomas Figures, alleged that Sessions called him “boy,” made remarks disparaging civil-rights organizations, and made jokes about the KKK, even as his office was investigating the Donald lynching.
Specifically, Sessions joked that he thought the KKK was okay until he realized that they liked to smoke marijuana, which is precisely the kind of joke that a guy named Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III would make while handling a pesky Mobile, Alabama lynching case.
So, so far I coming up blank on Sessions fighting to prosecute Klansmen or urging their execution.
In fact, what I’m getting is this:
In 1986, Figures testified before the Senate that while it was “literally true” that Sessions had not “obstructed the investigation of the murder of Michael Donald,” Sessions had “tried to persuade me to discontinue pursuit of the case.” Figures said that Sessions “remarked, with regard to the investigation, that the case was a waste of time, that it wasn’t going anywhere, that I should spend more time on other things, and that, if the perpetrators were found, I would not be assigned to the case.” Figures told the Senate that after the case went to the grand jury, and it “became increasingly apparent that we were going to break the case, Mr. Sessions attitude changed” and that he supported the prosecution.
The best anyone can do with this is tell us that Sessions let the Civil Rights guys from the Bureau’s DC headquarters use his offices to interview Klansmen. That’s supposed to pass for “fighting segregation in Alabama, [and] seeking the death penalty for KKK members.”
In the end, the case was tried by local prosecutors, not the Justice Department. A jury imposed a sentence of life imprisonment but the judge overruled them and imposed the death penalty. When Sessions became the Attorney General of Alabama, he opposed any mercy for Henry Hays, but that only put him at odds once again with the NAACP which was helping Hays appeal his death conviction.
By the time Hays was actually executed in 1997, Sessions was already a Senator. The most charitable spin we can put on this is that Sessions didn’t use every ounce of energy he had to stiff-arm the Civil Rights division and his own black deputy, and he let an investigation he didn’t like or want proceed without creating a bunch of problems. He bitched and moaned about it. He said the KKK was all right and the NAACP were a bunch of pinko bastards, but he didn’t stand in the doorway in the Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland with a bullhorn screaming “segregation now, segregation forever.”
New Jersey’s African-American Senator Cory Booker will become the first senator to testify against a presidential nominee today. He’ll be joined by civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis, who had his skull fractured in Selma, Alabama. The leader of the Black Congressional Caucus, Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, will testify against Sessions, as well. They’re aren’t doing this because they think Sessions has been an ally or that he’s responsible for crushing the Alabama Klan.
Booker was clear in his motivation:
“We’ve seen Jeff Sessions — that’s Senator Jeff Sessions — consistently voting against or speaking out against key ideals of the Voting Rights Act, taking measures to try to block criminal justice reform…He has a posture and a positioning that I think represent a real danger to our country…The Attorney General is responsible for ensuring the fair administration of justice, and based on his record, I lack confidence that Senator Sessions can honor this duty,” Booker said.
They’re going to try to argue that Jeff Sessions is a good man and a friend of blacks and that he can responsibly and fairly run the Justice Department. That’s ludicrous, and you should let everyone know it.
So Beauregard Sessions literally never had a press conference on the lynching case? Were they that common in AL in 1983? Certainly (yet another) sign that JBSIII is no “champion” of civil rights…
But it is wonderful to watch the insane boldness of these conservatives—JBSIII: Champion of Civil Rights! Not only based on absolutely no evidence, but flat out contrary to the evidence and senate verdict on the man in 1986. No matter. “Yet once more into the breach, dear friends! A champion of civil rights!!”
The fact that Sessions is actually hostile to civil rights, equal rights and, likely, black and brown people in general is of course a feather in his cap to the Trumpi movement—“he was a victim of political correctness! Who’s to judge, after all?” I would guess that virtually every Trump voter thinks Sessions a spectacular nominee. America back on the right course!
Booker probably has the correct idea, spend time on Sessions’ boatload of senate votes hostile to civil rights, and the Voting Rights Act in particular. There’s also a lot of senate votes indicating extreme indifference to the plight of minority peoples in America. His voting record should reveal him to anyone with eyes to see. But this one can’t really be stopped—no senate Repub will defect.
You are right
But they will own him
Slight O/T, but related. It appears there are enough Senate defectors to stymie McConnell’s schedule for ACA repeal.
But it can be killed by slight of hand if the DOJ does not pursue the government’s appeal to the DC Court’s decision in House v. Burwell, which will kill exchange subsidies, as I understand it.
I hope this will not be overlooked in his questioning.
http://www.usnews.com/news/health-care-news/articles/2016-12-05/donald-trump-gets-early-chance-to-gu
t-obamacare-with-house-v-burwell-on-hold
I watch CNCB in the mornings. There have been clear signals of buyers remorse on Wall Street. Wall Street cannot understand why congress seems to bogging itself down in healthcare. They want to hear about the tax cuts and removal of all those regulations. Thus, there may not be a Obamacare repeal vote before the tax cuts that will destroy Obamacare…..Trumpcare begins with the first GOP budget passed in 6 years.
so some further explication would be welcomed by the curious (me!):
I can certainly think of reasons why that might be so (e.g., organizational stance on principle against death penalty, which I’d applaud and agree with).
But it’s sure not a position I’d otherwise automatically expect the NAACP to take, particularly in the case of a KKKer who lynched a black man.
(Also, minor, but guessing you meant NAACP “was helping Hays appeal his death” sentence rather than “conviction”? Unless the conviction itself was somehow tainted? But I found no hint of that in the details you provided.)
I believe that they also opposed the execution of James Earl Ray, or was that only the King family? These executions shut the gunman’s mouth forever on who else might be involved.
Surely a position based on principle by Coretta Scott King who was no stranger to the struggle/difficulty of standing on principle in some situations.
Let me be clear that the second sentence is purely my own. However, it does provide a motivation for Sessions et al to execute the Klansman.
Ray wasn’t executed. His second lawyer at the time, one Percy Foreman, advised him to plead guilty to avoid a conviction (almost certain given his dubious legal counsel) and death sentence.
Ray died in prison in the late 90s, just before the successful civil suit for wrongful death brought by the King family against Loyd Jowers, who they alleged was part of a conspiracy to kill Dr King. Sometime in the 90s, and after speaking directly with Ray, Mrs King and her son Dexter came to believe Ray was not the shooter.
History — The New Yorker – Racial Discrimination and Capital Punishment: The Indefensible Death Sentence of Duane Buck By Lincoln Caplan.
The NAACP and “Inc. Fund” or LDF are legally separate entities, but the affiliation is very close.
I see Chaffetz says he will continue his investigation into Clinton’s e mails. Nice! These things live a separate existence. But JBSIII says he would recuse himself from any prosecution. Fits right in with Trump saying he would appoint a Special Prosecutor, or not.
Unfortunately, this is a plus or passing grade for him:
Kamala Harris blocked her staff from proceeding with a case against Steve Mnunchin’s bank, OneWest.
OTOH — and more recently,
Then this:
Demonstrating not only disregard for those those with disabilities, but also blaming the disabled for poor student conduct in classrooms. The latter is the mindset of some southern white folks that have been scapegoating AAs for at least a hundred and fifty years for problems created and maintained by white folks. That same orientation of scapegoating various groups by status is prevalent in his record as a public official. This is not the temperament that any judge, US AG, or FBI Director should possess. Regardless of how popular such a retrograde temperament is among the electorate.