Death Records Now

"Here are quotes by Jesse Helms himself. As you read them, bear in mind all those lovely quotes above, the ones about how he’s a conservative champion, a fighter for conservative ideals, etc. They said it, not me. Like Matt Yglesias, I would have thought it was a completely unjust smear against conservatism to have said any such thing. [UPDATE: To be clear, what I would have thought was unfair was not to take him as a part of the conservative movement, but to think of him as an exemplary figure or a champion. END UPDATE.]

On respect for the President:

"Just days after Mr. Helms, a Republican from North Carolina, created a furor by saying that President Clinton was not up to the job of Commander in Chief, he told The News and Observer, a newspaper in Raleigh: "Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He’d better have a bodyguard.""

On race:

"From the beginning, Helms was schooled in the political device of using race to propel white conservatives to the polls. As news director for WRAL radio, Helms supported Willis Smith in his 1950 Senate campaign against Frank Porter Graham, the former president of the University of North Carolina. The campaign theme was that Graham favored interracial marriages. "White people, wake up before it is too late," said one ad. "Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races."

The campaign’s further contribution to political notoriety was a handbill that showed Graham’s wife dancing with a black man. (…)

But before long, Helms found his real calling as a nightly television commentator for WRAL in North Carolina, a post he held from 1960 to 1972. He blasted the "pinkos" and "Yankees" in Washington, and criticized King’s inner circle of civil rights leaders for "proven records of communism, socialism and sex perversion." He railed against Social Security, calling it "nothing more than doles and handouts." (…)

In the 1972 race, pitted against a Democratic congressman from Durham, Helms used code words that enraged liberals. The congressman’s name was Nick Galifianakis. Helms’ slogan: "Elect Jesse Helms — He’s One of Us.""

And:

"Helms warned that, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced."

He suggested that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist dupe and refused, even decades after King’s death, to honor the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

He dismissed the civil rights movement as a cabal of communists and "moral degenerates."

As the movement gathered strength — and as murderous violence against activists in particular and African-Americans in general increased — Helms menacingly suggested to non-violent civil rights activists that, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that’s thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men’s rights.""

A personal favorite, worth remembering when you read things about how courteous Helms was in person:

"When Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois became the first African-American woman to sit in the Senate, Helms followed Moseley-Braun into an elevator, announcing to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch: "Watch me make her cry. I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing ‘Dixie’ until she cries."

Then, emphasizing the lines about how "good" things were before the Civil War ended slavery, Helms sang "Dixie.""

And another:

"His disdain for people of color (exemplified by his "humorous" habit, in private, of referring to any black person as "Fred") continues to find ways of expressing itself. He is the Senate’s most reliable opponent of any measure aimed at securing the rights or improving the conditions of African-Americans. In 1994, when Nelson Mandela visited the Capitol, Helms ostentatiously turned his back on him."

Humorous? Referring to any black person as "Fred"??

And (Helms himself, h/t Majikthise):

“
No intelligent Negro citizen should be insulted by a reference to this very plain fact of life. It is time to face honestly and sincerely the purely scientific statistical evidence of natural racial distinction in group intellect. … There is no bigotry either implicit or intended in such a realistic confrontation with the facts of life. … Those who would undertake to solve the problem by merely spending more money, and by massive forced integration, may be doing the greatest injustice of all to the Negro.”

And:

"Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced."

And:

“To rob the Negro of his reputation of thinking through a problem in his own fashion is about the same as trying to pretend that he doesn’t have a natural instinct for rhythm and for singing and dancing.”

And:

""Martin Luther King repeatedly refers to his ‘non-violent movement.’ It is about as non-violent as the Marines landing on Iwo Jima.""

And:
"I was a senior when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. Roughly 2,000 of us joined a vigil on the quad for several days. (…) Jesse Helms came on the television and said that all of the students sitting on the quad at Duke should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to "marry a Negro" (Duke students were practically all white in those days). Unless the student’s parents approved of that prospect, Helms advised, he or she should go back to class."

And:

"As a television commentator before running for the Senate, Helms said, "Dr. (Martin Luther) King’s outfit … is heavily laden at the top with leaders of proven records of communism, socialism and sex perversion, as well as other curious behavior." He called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress.""
Republicans admit your party is the party of White Supremacy and Racism and Nazism and I will stop humiliating you. If you don’t it will get ugly

As with Trent Lott, again, I find no inherent conflict in the Republicans’ support of Jesse Helms. This is in accord with the Republican Southern Strategy and that party’s efforts to attract racists and bigots to the Republican Party. It was a successful effort.

The Republican plan was to win elections and gain power by appealing to those who were disaffected by the civil rights legislation. The plan worked.