Erik Ose: Jesse Helms\' Shameful Legacy Can\'t Be Whitewashed

Tag : Documentary Bag

The urge to speak no ill of the dead is a powerful one. And it wason full display this week as former Senator Jesse Helms was laid torest. Although one brave North Carolina state employee, L.F. Eason,resisted that urge when he refused to lower the flag at his state lab to honor Helms and was forced to retire.
Republican leaders including Vice President Cheney attended Helms'funeral. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky eulogized Helms as one of the "kindest men" in Congress, and said, "no matter whoyou were, he always had a thoughtful word and a gentle smile."

Which is a load of crap. Clearly, McConnell saw the charming faceHelms could present to the world when he wanted to. But the realJesse Helms oozed out nearly every time he opened his mouth to slander those who didn't agree with him. He claimed "crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of lifewhich must be faced" in a 1981 New York Times interview, and in 1963 asked , "Are civil rights only for Negroes? White women in Washington whohave been raped and mugged on the streets in broad daylight haveexperienced the most revolting sort of violation of their civilrights."
Helms reserved his full disgust for gays and lesbians, who he called "weak, morally sick wretches" (1994), accused of engaging in"incredibly offensive and revolting conduct" (1990), and warned hisconstituents to beware "homosexuals, lesbians, disgusting peoplemarching in the streets, demanding all sorts of things, includingthe right to marry each other" (1990).
Beyond his hateful words, Helms' bigotry was shown by his politicalaims. He led the opposition to the federal Martin Luther King Jr.holiday, supported the apartheid regime in South Africa, andconsistently opposed civil rights legislation. For nearly twodecades, he fought tooth and nail against expanded federal fundingfor AIDS research, and exploited gays and lesbians as convenientscapegoats in his constant fear-mongering crusade.

Helms at 1990 campaign rally, moments after calling gays"disgusting people"
Media post-mortems of Helms' career were mostly deferential,especially in North Carolina, the state he represented in theSenate for five terms. N.C. television stations and newspapersglossed over almost all of Helms' ugly history as the lastunapologetically racist politician of the segregation era. Even theliberal Raleigh News & Observer kept its gloves on, despite having been Helms' favorite presspunching bag for years.
It was largely a repeat of the softball treatment Helms got when he announced his retirement in 2001 . Then, the Washington Post called Helms "one of the most powerful conservatives on CapitolHill for three decades," and the New York Times said he'd been "a conservative stalwart for nearly 30 years." Butthey avoided serious discussion of how Helms stirred the pot ofbigotry and hatred to win elections and further his politicalcareer.
Helms grew up in small town Monroe, N.C., home to an active Ku KluxKlan. His father, known as Mr. Jesse, was the police chief and amean, imposing 6' 4" man who didn't hesitate to intimidate and runroughshod over the civil rights of Monroe's black citizens.

Jesse A. Helms, Sr.
In North Carolina historian Tim Tyson's biography of civil rights leader Robert Williams, head of the Monroe NAACP,Williams described watching when he was eleven years old as Mr.Jesse beat a black woman on the street, then "dragged her off tothe nearby jailhouse, her dress up over her head." He was hauntedfor years by the woman's "tortured screams as the flesh was groundaway from the friction of the concrete."
Interviewed in 2005 for the documentary Senator No and asked about Monroe in the 1920s and 30s, Helms said, "In somany ways I think the relationship between the races was far betterthan it is now. I could give you a thousand examples of why I'mconvinced of that. I don't know of anybody who ever persecutedanybody of another race."
Helms had his first brush with statewide politics in 1950. Employedas a radio reporter for conservative magnate A.J. Fletcher's WRALnetwork, he unofficially aided right wing Raleigh attorney WillisSmith in his primary campaign against incumbent U.S. Senator andNorth Carolina liberal hero Frank Porter Graham.
Graham beat Smith in the initial Democratic primary, and Smith hadall but decided not to call for a runoff. But three Supreme Courtdecisions undermining segregation were announced within weeks,inflaming racial tensions in the South. Helms took to the airwavesand urged Smith's voters to assemble at his Raleigh house and askhim to reconsider. A mob of supporters responded, and Smith calledfor a runoff.

Handbill created by Jesse Helms for Willis Smith's 1950 campaign
In the runoff, Helms used the skills he had learned as a reporterto help create scurrilous, race-baiting ads and handbills forSmith's candidacy. One was headlined , "White People - Wake Up Before It's Too Late," and asked, "Do youwant negroes working beside you, your wife and daughters in yourmills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races."The most infamous was a flyer featuring a fake photo, doctored toshow Sen. Graham's wife dancing with a black man. Helms and hisbackers later went to great lengths to cover up his role in theSmith campaign, but as biographer Ernest Furgurson put it , "Jesse was in it up to his neck." Helms went to Washington withthe victorious Sen. Willis Smith, hired as his top assistant.
Throughout the 1960s, Helms denounced the civil rights movementfrom his bully pulpit as the most widely known TV and radiocommentator in North Carolina. He delivered snarling five-minutecommentaries that were broadcast twice a day at the end of WRAL'snewscasts, railing against integration, liberals, and anything theKennedys said or did. Helms' diatribes were reprinted in newspapersthroughout North Carolina and the South with titles like "Nation Needs to Know of Red Involvement in Race Agitation!"

He called civil rights workers "Communists and sex perverts,"claimed there was "evidence that the Negroes and whitesparticipating in the march to Montgomery participated in sex orgiesof the rawest sort," and commented "they should ask their parentsif it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry aNegro," in response to students holding campus vigils when MartinLuther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968.
Helms won election to the U.S. Senate in 1972 after tying his GreekAmerican opponent to George McGovern and using the slogan, "JesseHelms: He's One of Us!" He was soon dubbed "Senator No" for hisvotes against government spending on social programs, includingeducation, environmental protection, school lunches, food stamps,and aid to the disabled.
During the 1976 presidential campaign, Helms and his politicalorganization, the National Congressional Club, made a lastingimpact on American politics by helping Ronald Reagan come frombehind to win the North Carolina primary. This victory sparked asurge for Reagan in the late contests that almost led to hisunseating President Gerald Ford as the Republican nominee. Itsealed Reagan's position as the 1980 frontrunner following Ford'snarrow general election loss to Jimmy Carter.

Button from 1976 Republican Convention
To win North Carolina, the Helms machine went all out. They ranhard-hitting attack ads slamming Ford over the Panama Canal Treaty.And of course, Helms used racially coded appeals. Tens of thousandsof leaflets were distributed that alleged Ford was considering picking a black running mate.
In the late 70s, Helms was a strong supporter of the apartheid regime in South Africa. He voted againstvirtually every U.S. measure ever proposed to pressure the whiteminority government, no matter how mild. Speaking against anattempt to impose economic sanctions, Helms claimed, "all this billdoes is exacerbate the situation in South Africa." Referring toanti-apartheid protests, he asked, "who are we to be so pious aboutthe efforts of the South African government to stop the riots, thelooting, the shooting and the mayhem that's going on over there?"

N.C. students protesting apartheid cross paths with Helms, 1984
Helms filibustered against renewal of the Voting Rights Act in1982. The next year, he made national headlines and drew heavycriticism when he led the charge against making Martin Luther KingJr. Day a federal holiday.
In his 1984 re-election fight against sitting N.C. Gov. Jim Hunt,Helms went to the mat in a knock-down, drag-out campaign rememberedas one of the nastiest campaigns in modern history. Perhapsrealizing he had overreached in his overt displays of racism, Helmsdialed back his attacks on blacks and minorities, although he still stirred up fear of voter registration drives associated with Jesse Jackson'spresidential campaign.
But Helms had found a even scarier bogeyman - the homosexualmenace. He and his supporters repeatedly linked Jim Hunt to gay activists and took every opportunity to "throw rocks at the gays," as theN.C. Republican Party chair explained Helms' strategy.

Helms at press conference, 1982
During the 1980s, as the AIDS crisis unfolded, Helms led theopposition in the U.S. Senate to increased federal funding for AIDSresearch. This was perhaps Jesse Helms' greatest crime, and leftreal blood on his hands. Even a modest increase in spending couldhave saved tens of thousands of gay Americans who died horrible,painful deaths in the years before effective AIDS drugs weredeveloped.
In 1987 he said, "Somewhere along the line we're going to have toquarantine people with AIDS." Helms' uncaring response to thedisease was explained by his tirade the next year against thebipartisan Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill, when he claimed , "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannotbe traced in origin to sodomy."
Helms continued to oppose AIDS funding throughout the 1990s. In1995, he fought reauthorization of the Ryan White Act , saying AIDS victims contracted the disease through "deliberate,disgusting, revolting conduct." That same year nationallysyndicated advice columnist Ann Landers called him out as a liarwhen she published a sharp rebuke to his efforts to cut AIDSfunding, headlined "These are the facts, Sen. Helms."

Helms makes his point, 2002
Sadly, this account only scratches the surface of all Jesse Helms'shameful words and deeds. No amount of whitewashing Helms' legacycan erase the stain of his reliance on hate-filled, divisivepolitics, or the hurt he caused so many people in the process.
Erik Ose registered N.C. voters against Helms in the 1990s asco-founder of Musicians Organized for Voter Education (MOVE).Cross-posted at The Latest Outrage .