[wheettebott]

TPM: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...on.php?ref=fpa

Let's take a further look at the Citizens Council, the Civil Rights-era segregationist group that was recently praised by potential presidential candidate Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) -- for keeping order, he said, by deterring Ku Klux Klan activity during the civil rights movement.

Here is a Council newspaper from 1956, based in Jackson, Mississippi (which is roughly 40 miles from Barbour's hometown of Yazoo City). The paper includes such headlines as: "Christian Love And Segregation"; "Council Movement Spreads As Nation Reacts to Danger"; "Negroes Taking Over"; "Baptists Rap Mixing" (note: In 1950's American English, "rap" in this context meant to harshly criticize, similar to "blast" in a headline now); "Rape In Germany," warning of alleged rapes of German women by African-American soldiers; "Lady Veteran Raps Hospital Mixology"; and "Enemy Made Large Gains In 1955."

...

In a profile in the Weekly Standard, Barbour recalled the group in positive terms:"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. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you'd lose it. If you had a store, they'd see nobody shopped there. We didn't have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City."In an interview with me earlier, Barbour's spokesman insisted that the governor is not a racist.