Dana Milbank: Is the NAACP Trying to Pick a Fight with the Tea Party?
[Dana Milbank is an op-ed columnist for the WaPo.]
...This latest provocation came in a Wednesday conference call arranged by the NAACP and other civil rights groups to release a new report, "Tea Party Nationalism." The report itself, put together by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, appears to be relatively tame. But the timing -- 13 days before the midterm elections -- is suspicious, and the unveiling was at times incendiary.
The Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP chapter, used his time on the conference call to liken the Tea Partyers to southern racists during Reconstruction and church bombers and assassins during the civil rights era....
The NAACP and the Tea Party have been in a grudge match for some time. In July, the NAACP passed a resolution demanding that the Tea Party repudiate "racist elements" within the movement. A leader of the Tea Party Express, Mark Williams, responded to that with a racist rant directed at Jealous -- and was soon drummed out of the movement....
Read entire article at WaPo
...This latest provocation came in a Wednesday conference call arranged by the NAACP and other civil rights groups to release a new report, "Tea Party Nationalism." The report itself, put together by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, appears to be relatively tame. But the timing -- 13 days before the midterm elections -- is suspicious, and the unveiling was at times incendiary.
The Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP chapter, used his time on the conference call to liken the Tea Partyers to southern racists during Reconstruction and church bombers and assassins during the civil rights era....
The NAACP and the Tea Party have been in a grudge match for some time. In July, the NAACP passed a resolution demanding that the Tea Party repudiate "racist elements" within the movement. A leader of the Tea Party Express, Mark Williams, responded to that with a racist rant directed at Jealous -- and was soon drummed out of the movement....