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Founding CBC Member: KKK, Tea Party interchangeable

By: James Richardson (Diary)  |  August 27th, 2010 at 11:30 AM  | 

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A prominent civil rights crusader and former congressman on Thursday likened anti-big government Tea Party activists to members of the notorious Klu Klux Klan at a press conference questioning the motives a conservative rally scheduled for the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

The “Restoring Honor” rally, hosted by conservative radio and television talker Glenn Beck, boasts former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin among its lineup of speakers. The event is set to take place Saturday on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C, and black civil rights activists are fuming, contending that conservatives have “declared war on the civil rights movement of the 1960s.”

Rev. Walter Fauntroy, who represented the District of Columbia from 1971 to 1991 as a non-voting delegate and was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said at a press conference at the National Press Club that the monikers Tea Party and KKK were to be used interchangeably.

“We are going to take on the barbarism of war, the decadence of racism, and the scourge of poverty, that the Ku Klux — I mean to say the Tea Party,” Fauntroy said to laughter. “You all have to forgive me, but I — you have to use them interchangeably.”

Fauntroy’s remarks come after months of Democratic partisans blasting the conservative activists as racist, most recently with an NAACP resolution condemning “racist elements” in the movement.

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COMMENTS

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  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    That’s ok, you continue to cry wolf. it has become meaningless, just like your civil rights coalition.

  • bobojake
  • SusanAnne Hiller

    The Civil Rights movement has and always will have Republican roots.

    http://biggovernment.com/mzak/2010/05/31/republican-roots-of-the-1964-civil-rights-act/

  • Gmac

    his abject stupidity is up, as is his relevance to anything having to do with human or civil rights.

  • Aaron Gardner

    The CBC and the New Black Panthers have to be used interchangeably.

  • Steve Summers

    The KKK was (is?) evil – they intimidated and sometimes even murdered black people for the “crime” of being black. The TEA Party has done no such things. Equating the two essentially says that the KKK was nothing but a bunch of protesters with a shared vision of what was wrong with America, not a murderous group of evil people. If that were true, it would mean that the people who complained about the KKK were just a bunch of sniveling whiners, like today’s liberals, instead of actual, sympathy-deserving victims. If I were a black person, I’d be offended by that.

    Of course, if I were a gay person, I’d also be pretty offended by the way libs call the TEA party protesters “Tea baggers”. Using the term basically says the TEA partiers are homosexuals, and therefore deserving of scorn. It wouldn’t be an insult if they didn’t believe being gay was something to be ashamed of, right?

    You’d think they’d be smart enough to realize how much of their true feelings they reveal with comments like these.

  • kchand

    Such statements do not demonize the Teapartys but, instead, softens the image of the KKK.

  • Patricia_C

    “The Rev. Timothy McDonald, pastor of the First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta, said it is imperative that black communities not allow “the radical religious right to try to rewrite history and redefine history and redefine the freedom movement…”

    I am curious… Was Rev. Tim talking about Glenn Beck’s efforts to use his radio and TV programs and events like “Restoring Honor” to “re-write” and “re-define” history to INCLUDE the proud and courageous contributions of blacks in the founding of our Nation… or the efforts of the liberal left to “re-write” and “re-define” our Nations Story by REMOVING any MENTION of their accomplishments…?

    The “New Coalition of Conscience” my hiney-parts… More like the “Old Alliance of Ignorance” to me.

    Again… Like my grandmother always said: “We only attack the things that intimidate us.”…

    • http://lenamargita.com txgeekgirl

      Are you confused that Republicans led the war that freed slaves who all became Democrats? I am.

      Are you confused that most KKK members vote Democratically? I am.

      Are you confused that black churches who supposedly preach from the same Bible I read will tell you to not support what’s in it but listen to man-made gov’t at any level? I am.

      Or how about that people in this country here illegally are not real law breakers? I am – especially since “here illegally” means it’s criminal you are there.

  • appman

    With 70% of black children having no daddy – more blacks in prison than in college – and drugs inundating black areas …

    Perhaps, it’s time for them to stop crying racism and get off their lazy asses!

    • Martin Knight
    • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

      You should be ashamed of yourself jackass. Liberals never try honest arguments anymore.

  • renny

    The more they whine and rail, the dumber they look.

    • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

      nt

  • realskinny

    the British politicians and generals at the beginning of the Revolution. The sneering disdain and contempt often reads just like a Dionne column in WAPO about the Tea parties. These people are so disconnected from their own country.

  • jiminga

    that demonizing the people that disagree with them only broadens the opposition. Every independant voter that reads Fauntroy’s absurd comments will be pulled farther to the right. Just another attempt at race baiting by an obvious black racist, further proof the libs have lost the argument and are becoming irrelevant.