I was working on an environmental post when this headline crossed my radar … TWICE!
Editor of Alabama newspaper calls for the Ku Klux Klan to ‘night ride again’
Say WHAT??? And then again …
Alabama newspaper editor calls on KKK to lynch Democrats
Deep breathes … in … out … in … out …
WHAT the Sam HELL is wrong with these damn people???The editor is Goodloe Sutton and the newspaper is the Democrat-Reporter in Linden, Alabama. He said Democrats were going to raise taxes and that the KKK should hang them and raid Washington DC. This, my friends, is the depth to which this nation has sunk.
“Time for the Ku Klux Klan to night ride again. Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats are plotting to raise taxes in Alabama… This socialist-communist ideology sounds good to the ignorant, the uneducated, and the simple-minded people. Seems like the Klan would be welcome to raid the gated communities up there.”
Asked to elaborate what he meant by “cleaning up D.C.,” Sutton suggested lynching.
“We’ll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them.”
When asked if he felt it was appropriate for the publisher of a newspaper to call for the lynching of Americans, Sutton doubled down on his position.
“… It’s not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communists we’re talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?”
When asked if he recognized the KKK as a racist and violent organization, Sutton disagreed, comparing the Klan to the NAACP.
“A violent organization? Well, they didn’t kill but a few people. The Klan wasn’t violent until they needed to be.”
Say WHAT??? What planet does this man hail from??? Sutton is 79-years-old and surely remembers the dark days before the Civil Rights movement? But wait … he said they “didn’t kill but a few people” … perhaps he doesn’t consider African-Americans to be ‘people’?
Sutton and his paper haven’t always been on the wrong side …
- Sutton and the newspaper received national acclaim in the 1990s for their reporting on a corrupt local sheriff. Sutton and his wife, Jane, reported a series of stories of misused funds and abuse of power.
- The New York Times in 1998 reported Sutton and the Democrat-Reporter lost advertising dollars and subscribers over their reporting.
- In 2007, Sutton was inducted into the University of Southern Mississippi’s School of Communication Hall of Fame for the couple’s anti-corruption articles and editorials.
After his aforementioned editorial, the University of Southern Mississippi appropriately removed him from the Hall of Fame, saying …
“Within the last few hours, the School of Communication at the University of Southern Mississippi learned of Mr. Goodloe Sutton’s call for violence and the return of the Ku Klux Klan. Mr. Sutton’s subsequent rebuttals and attempts at clarification only reaffirm the misguided and dangerous nature of his comments. The School of Communication strongly condemns Mr. Sutton’s remarks as they are antithetical to all that we value as scholars of journalism, the media, and human communication. Our University’s values of social responsibility and citizenship, inclusion and diversity, and integrity and civility are the foundation upon which we have built our School and its programs.”
A bit late, I think. A few of the paper’s past headlines …
- Homosexuals take black spotlight
- Slavery was a good lesson for Jews
- Selma black thugs murder Demopolite Saturday night
Some days I wonder if perhaps we should have just let the South secede?
But to the point …
My friends … this is what is happening today in our nation. Now, some people will say that the United States, or ‘America’, was once the greatest nation on earth. Not so, but still, it was pretty good. We overcame many of our stumbling blocks, we were learning to be kind, to be tolerant, to accept people for what they were, the good the bad and the ugly, so to speak.
I could go back to the origins of the hate and divisiveness we see today, but I’ve said it all before and what’s the point? Better, I think, to look ahead and discuss the damage that is being done today by the likes of Goodloe Sutton, David Duke, Jason Kessler, Richard Spencer, and ask ourselves how we fix this. How do we put paid to this “Us” vs “Them” mentality? Quite honestly, the combination of this hatred and the open gun culture in this nation is lethal.

Daryl Davis (left) with Klansman
A few people have made inroads, most notably Daryl Davis, the man I wrote about in August 2017 who for the past 30 years has spent time befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan, forming friendships and listening as well as talking. He had, as of my original post, convinced some 200 klansmen to give up their robes. Two hundred out of approximately 248 million adults in the U.S. may not sound like much, but it’s a start.
Remember back in May/June of last year, when I tried a project involving Lisa Jensen of The Snarky Activist, where we shared opinions, ideas, and tried to find common ground? It went well for a bit, but then Lisa had some personal issues, needed some time, and it just sort of fizzled. I think I will get in touch with her this week and see if she has any interest in picking it up again. And then there was my friend Brian who was willing to participate for a time, but last time I sent him a message, he didn’t respond. Perhaps I will try again.
We cannot legislate kindness and understanding, so I think it is up to us, the average citizen both republican and democrat, religious and non-religious, black and white, to start the conversation, for the only answer I can see begins with two things: communication and kindness, being a role model. I have a short fuse these days, as I’m sure many of you do, but perhaps we need to tamp down our tempers and act more kindly toward other humans, share more smiles, give more hugs.
And with that, I put the ball in your court, dear readers. Does anybody have any ideas how we can begin to make a difference in our own little corners of the world? Does anybody have a friend who might be interested in participating in another series of ‘give-and-take’ posts? February 17th was National Acts of Random Kindness Day. Maybe the answer starts with making every day a day in which we do a random act of kindness. I don’t know the answer, but we simply must combat the sort of hate that allows a newspaper editor to call for a resurgence of the KKK night riders to murder democrats! This cannot go unnoticed or be ignored!
About an hour after I thought I had finished this post, breaking news crossed my radar about a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant and white supremacist, Christopher Paul Hasson, who was found with a cache of weapons and ammunition and documents stating …
“I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth.”
Stay tuned …