Posted on 04/09/2004 6:49:31 PM PDT by wjersey
WASHINGTON, April 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Members of the African- American leadership network Project 21 are asking U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd to resign his seat in the wake of inappropriate comments he made commemorating fellow senator Robert C. Byrd's 17,000th Senate vote.
Senator Dodd said: "I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia that he would have been a great senator at any moment. Some were right for a time. Robert C. Byrd, in my view, would have been right for any time."
"How could Senator Dodd have made the comments he did with a straight face? And how can he believe he's going to get away with it? Robert Byrd is a former leader in the Ku Klux Klan, and later an opponent of civil rights legislation. I can think of many places in American history where I wouldn't want him setting our nation's agenda," said Project 21 Kevin Martin. "When Senator Trent Lott made similar comments about Senator Strom Thurmond at a party, he was roundly condemned. He lost his leadership post, and almost drummed out of the Senate. What Lott said was hurtful, and he paid a price at Senator Dodd's urging. Now it's Dodd's time to face the music and resign."
In 2002, then-Senate Majority Leader Lott suggested America would be better off if Thurmond had been elected President in 1948. In that election, Thurmond promoted racial segregation, but later renounced those beliefs. United Press International columnist Peter Roff quoted Senator Dodd as saying at the time, "If a Democratic leader had made (Lott's) statements, we would have to call for his stepping aside, without question whatsoever."
Senator Byrd -- first elected to the Senate in 1958 -- is a former member of the racist Ku Klux Klan, where he held a leadership position of kleagle before quitting the group in the 1940s. He was against President Harry Truman's integration of the military. He filibustered and voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and against the confirmation of black U.S. Supreme Court justices Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. He is currently keeping black Appeals Court nominee Janet Rogers Brown for receiving a confirmation vote.
Martin adds: "Senator Dodd's statement is tasteless and wrong. It's time for him to follow his own advice and leave."
In 2002, Project 21 members were outspoken and critical of Senator Lott's comments, and called for him to step down from his leadership position. A press release on the topic can be found at http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRLott1202.html, and a commentary at http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21NVWilsonLott103.html.
Project 21 has been a leading voice of the African-American community since 1992. For more information, contact David Almasi at 202-371-1400 ext. 106 or Project21@nationalcenter.org, or visit Project 21's website at http://www.project21.org/P21Index.html.
Like Jack Nicholson said in "A Few Good Men" -"Don't I look like the f--ing a--hole."
Didn't I hear that most black voters believe the story, that no blacks died on 9-11-01, so that they should not worry about the War on Terror, as it's a "white man's war"?
If the media was the least bit intellectually honest they would have pointed out that excluding race pimp Al Sharpton, the stage at the recent Jackass Unity dinner was totally devoid of color.
Gore Jr's blatant adversion to being guarded by black Secret Service men, Clinton's ghosting of his much vaunted Harlem pad, Dean's token appointments of minorities in Vermont, and Kerry's weekly no rhythm shuck-n-jives at black churches are nothing more than a sophisticated form of Jim Crow.
WASHINGTON, April 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) will deliver the Democratic Hispanic Radio Address this Saturday, April 10, 2004.
December 10 , 2002
NAACP Calls For Senator Trent Lott To Resign From Majority Leader-Elect Post
Denounces Senator's Remarks as Hateful Bigotry
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) today called for Senator Trent Lott to resign from the majority leader-elect post citing recent bigoted remarks he made during the congressional celebration for Senator Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday. The junior senator from Mississippi said: "When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had of followed our lead we wouldn't of had all these problems over all these years, either." Thurmond, the outgoing senator from South Carolina, ran for president in 1948 on a staunch segregationist platform.
Kweisi Mfume, NAACP President & CEO, said: "Senator Lott's statement is the kind of callous, calculated, hateful bigotry that has no place in the halls of the Congress. His remarks are dangerously divisive and certainly unbefitting a man who is to hold such a highly esteemed leadership role as the majority leader of the senate." Lott is scheduled to become the senate majority leader next month when the 108th Congress convenes.
Mfume added, "Sen. Lott should resign from the position of majority leader-elect to make way for another member of the Republican Party whose moral compass is pointed toward improving race relations and not dredging up this nation's poor, polarizing performance of the past."
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its half-million adult and youth members throughout the United States and the world are premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.
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