“Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV show
With some smart ass New York Jew
And the Jew laughed at Lester Maddox
And the audience laughed at Lester Maddox too
Well he may be a fool but he’s our fool
If they think they’re better than him they’re wrong.”
Randy Newman, “Rednecks”
Governor Lester Maddox, 1915-2003
I love that fucking song:
Rednecks, rednecks
Don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground
We’re rednecks, rednecks
And we’re keeping the niggers down.
I hate Lester Maddox. No tears for him. Interestingly enough, Maynard Jackson, the first black mayor of Atlanta, died a day or so ago as well, and Gov. Perdue ordered the flags to fly at half-staff for Maddox, not Jackson. He says he was following protocol, but you can imagine how a lot of Atlanteans take it, coming from Mr. Battle Flag himself.
I sat next to Maynard Jackson at Clinton’s first inaugural, right at the steps of the Capitol. He high-fived me when the oath of office had been administered and then he pulled out a bottle of champagne to share with those of us sitting around him. It was minus 325 degrees that mid-morning, but Jackson’s enthusiasm for the new administration, coupled with the champagne, gave me a lasting memory of an historic time.
So RIP Mayor Jackson. And fuck you Lester Maddox, you big steaming pile of dog shit.
kfb?? you MUST elaborate on this anecdote. what were you doing there? were you invited? wha, wha??
for the record: i may not have agreed with his particular beliefs, but maddox represents a greatly overlooked bit of our freedoms: the leave-me-alone part. the photos on the ajc site show it: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/photos/maddox/image3.html
the sign says “we do not discriminate because of ‘race, creed, or color’ but because we are FREE.” that’s a very powerful statement. who SAYS i have to like everybody else?
again, i may not agree with it, but it’s important. For “[t]he makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness . . . They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).
I worked on the Clinton-Gore campaign in Little Rock in ‘92 and then on the Transition Team, so I had the hookup on inaugural activities like the swearing-in ceremony, the inaugural ball, the parade, etc. I went on to work at the White House for 6.5 years so I got to go through the whole inaugural hoopla in ‘96 as well. Neat experiences, inaugurals are. I was so close in ‘92 that I could see the snarl planted on Rehnquist’s face.
I’m all for people having the right to dislike or even hate others on their own time, but I have a hard time defending Lester Maddox for his public decisions as governor, a position in which he was sworn to uphold the laws of his state—and of the mandates of Federal courts. This he did not do, hence the hard time I have defending any aspect of his being.
Take a look at this picture the WaPo is running:
Maddox picture
Here is the caption under it:
Georgia’s last segregationist governor died today at 87. In 1964, he holds an ax handle like one he used to oust blacks at his restaurant. (AP file)
i can’t believe i’ve even vaguely defended maddox today! if my 16-yr-old-self could see me now.
i remember a picture—couldn’t find it today—of maddox with the ax handle, and his son (or young male employee) with a snub-nosed .38 angrily rushing into a crowd. it was the very face of repugnant southern hate. despite his intellectual argument—might i not serve who i want?—the sneers on their faces dashes my argument as much as bush 43 and “compassionate conservatism” in the face of head start and americorps cuts.
a google image search of “lester maddox” returned this:
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1998/11/09/cover.gif
an ox-am article on the former governor softened me considerably—the odd “the governor and the dishwasher” act he got together all the articles have mentioned today. they never note that his partner was black. it was sweet in a weird, old—well, old southern guy way.
him and wallace both confuse the hell out of me, to be honest.
All those old segregationist boys are (were) truly hard to read. Many, in their later years, changed positions or softened them considerably.
Examples: Wallace, Strom Thurmond, Faubus, and even Maddox. But that’s what’s scary: when they were pulling out axe handles or standing down National Guardsmen from the doorway of a school, you knew where they stood. I’d take that over a closeted Klansman any day.
I had the pleasure of smoking cigarettes and drinking cocktails with Jackson at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Interesting guy. Didn’t have much use for republicans.
One thing that really bothers me about the segregationist southern governors is that a number of them were “moderates” on the race issue in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but then used segregation to supply red meat to their constituents. And that is abhorrent.
Good Ole Boys is one of the best CD’s of all time. i wish i had a copy now.
Well, Lester Maddox failed to call in the National Guard to stop a riot on the UGA campus and held off the State Troopers while hordes of angry whites threw bricks and shit at Charlayne Hunter’s dorm room window. Come here to the UGA Russell Library and look at the archives and you’ll see some fucked up shit that will not make you defend Maddox in the least, no matter how states rights you are. That man was close to a sociopath.
as for the Seg. governors, you have to realize that prior to them for over 100 years the Primaries often featured promiently as a big issue “who hates black people more/who’ll protect us from black people” the world was changing around an issue that was bedrock, historically since day one for many states. PLUS, that’s what the citizens WANTED. that’s what got them worked up. of course they’d push the issue…and of course it was repugnant.
“you have to realize that prior to them for over 100 years the Primaries often featured promiently as a big issue ‘who hates black people more/who’ll protect us from black people’”
And things have changed today how? Alas, some of these repuglican representatives’ back roads stump speeches aren’t all that different.