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Bush, at Commemoration, Says Nooses Are Symbol of "Gross Injustice"

Making some of his most pointed remarks on race relations, President Bush on Tuesday denounced racially charged incidents involving nooses and called the era of lynchings from the 19th to the 20th centuries “a shameful chapter in American history.”

“The noose is not a symbol of prairie justice, but of gross injustice,” Mr. Bush said at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House. “Displaying one is not a harmless prank. And ‘lynching’ is not a word to be mentioned in jest.

“As a civil society, we should be able to agree that noose displays and lynching jokes are deeply offensive. They are wrong. And they have no place in America today.”
Read entire article at NYT