Raleigh News and Observer columnist gets facts wrong and leaves others out (Part 1)

Raleigh News and Observer political reporter and columnist Rob Christensen's last two columns (June 12 and 19) contain errors of both commission and omission. Today I'll post on his June 12 column; in a few days I'll post on his June 19 column.

Christensen begins his June 12 column with a reference to the U.S. Senate's apology for its failure to ever enact anti-lynching legislation, an action both North Carolina Senators, Elizabeth Dole and Robert Burr, supported. He then discusses lynching and some matters related to it.

Christensen says that because "of opposition from Southern Democrats over the years, the Senate failed to pass about 200 anti-lynching bills." But he fails to mention the legislative form their opposition took: filibusters and threats of them.

He also fails to say that, unimpeded by a filibuster option, the U.S. House of Representatives three times passed anti-lynching legislation which Presidents were willing to sign into law, if only the Senate agreed to the legislation.

But for the use of the filibuster, America would have had anti-lyching and much other civil rights legislation well before World War II. Christensen should have told his readers that.

Christensen did say this: "(North Carolina), a border state with a reputation for moderation, had 68 lynchings, far fewer than most Southern states."

North Carolina a border state? That needs only a one-word response: Virginia.

A "reputation for moderation?" In a discussion of lynching in a state whose history also includes slavery, race riots, and segregation, using the noun "moderation" is inappropriate and insensitive.

North Carolina's history with regard to lynching and race hasn't been "moderate;" it's been terrible.

When telling his readers about NC Democrat Party icon Governor Charles Aycock (1901-05), Christensen says only:

(The Governor) was continuously frustrated by his failure to stop 11 lynchings during his term. He ordered two companies of militia to the town of Emma near Asheville to prevent a lynching and offered rewards for information leading to the conviction of a lyncher.

Christensen tells readers nothing about how, at the turn of the last century, Aycock and N&O editor and owner Josephus Daniels led a white supremacy movement on behalf of the NC Democratic Party. Their goal was to seize power from the then politically dominant alliance of Republicans and blacks who, despite being only a generation removed from slavery, held many public offices and voted in significant numbers, with their vote almost always overwhelmingly Republican.

The strategy Aycock, Daniels, and others devised to seize power had two main thrusts. One involved disenfranchising blacks by legal means when possible, by physical intimidation when necessary. The other involved playing on the racial fears of whites. Aycock ran for Governor under the banner: White Supremacy-Protect Us.

I've one final criticism regarding Christensen's column. It has to do with the column's lead: Free at last from grim past

Perhaps Christensen didn't select it. But whoever did needs to be told the lead just isn't true.

In preparing this post I found Philip Dray's book, At The Hands Of Persons Unknown: The Lynching Of Black America, a reliable and useful history of events that still shock and pain.

Christensen's June 12 column is here.