The Hollings Society, because we need more men like Fritz Hollings in government (Charleston: tenant, public schools)

[Charlestondata]

Dang it. I said you had the last word and now this. There was lots of time between when Hollings was against desegregation and the end of his career to right himself, and right himself he did. Just like Strom Thurmond. I asked my spouse, whose father, grandparents and great-grandparents were from Edgefield County, whether Edgefield has a statue of Strom Thurmond.

“Yes they do.”
“What do the Black residents think about it?”
“I have no idea.”
“What do you think Black people in general think about Strom Thurmond?”
“Well, after he hired his first Black intern and started getting funding for Black communities based on what their leaders said they needed, they liked him fine. He carried an unusually high percentage of the Black vote for a Republican. One African-American mayor of a small town said as far as he was concerned SC had one senator, and that was Strom Thurmond.”

My spouse has a B.A. in political science and has savant-like qualities for being able to regurgitate everything political he ever learned by lecture or by reading. He’s also a critical thinker, especially with politics and history, and he has a B.A. in social work.

I’m not partisan. I give credit where credit is due. Strom Thurmond, the one who filibustered to try to prevent school integration, deserves my credit for having changed his ways on civil rights and service to our Black population. Fritz Hollings too.

[Vaccinated Masker]

Originally Posted by Charlestondata

Dang it. I said you had the last word and now this. There was lots of time between when Hollings was against desegregation and the end of his career to right himself, and right himself he did. Just like Strom Thurmond. I asked my spouse, whose father, grandparents and great-grandparents were from Edgefield County, whether Edgefield has a statue of Strom Thurmond.

“Yes they do.”
“What do the Black residents think about it?”
“I have no idea.”
“What do you think Black people in general think about Strom Thurmond?”
“Well, after he hired his first Black intern and started getting funding for Black communities based on what their leaders said they needed, they liked him fine. He carried an unusually high percentage of the Black vote for a Republican. One African-American mayor of a small town said as far as he was concerned SC had one senator, and that was Strom Thurmond.”

My spouse has a B.A. in political science and has savant-like qualities for being able to regurgitate everything political he ever learned by lecture or by reading. He’s also a critical thinker, especially with politics and history, and he has a B.A. in social work.

So in one instance, your critically thinking spouse claims he has no idea what black people think. But in another instance, he knows exactly what black people think about something and 'they' all have the same opinion, they like Strom.

Hollings also presented himself as a spokesperson for black residents: “The [black residents] of our state,” he claimed, “feel that their Governor and General Assembly are doing everything possible to provide them the best educational program…

https://sc.edu/about/our_history/uni...gs_library.php

I recommend reading the Hollings and Segregation section at the link to see some of Hollings pro-segregation quotes. The article is still generally soft on Hollings because it is written by somebody associated with the Hollings Special Collection at the UofSC library. The article implies most of the Democrat segregationists switched to the GOP with Hollings being a rare exception. That's as big a gaffe as getting Lincoln and Stephen Douglas mixed up.

I believe an objective person who reads that will agree with me he doesn't deserve a statue and all the praise in our newspapers. It is cool if he did sincerely change but that doesn't mean he was a hero.

My main point has been based on the observation that our state has people, past and present, who never were segregationists and did more impressive things than Hollings. But they don't get recognition for it.

The courthouse that was renamed at Hollings' request was renamed after another white person rather than a black resident. It seems like a reformed segregationist would understand the optics of that.

He should have recommended naming it after Tim Scott, our first black senator who essentially replaced Hollings.

[Charlestondata]

My main point is they both were against integration, but that they redeemed themselves through their service in the latter years. Show me where I said all Black people are in love with Strom Thurmond and believe he should have statues in public places. I already know what they each had to say about integration. The end.

[Vaccinated Masker]

Every day people with my general views are accused of being racist. In some cases, the accusers do an implausible race hoax like Jussie Smollet.

It is likely there would be relatively few false accusations of racism today if men like Hollings and Strom had not existed. Every false accusation of racism is based on the fact there were white racists like Hollings and Strom. I blame both the false accusers and men like Strom and Hollings for the false accusations. What Hollings and Strom did still taints SC's image. If somebody is motivated to beat up on SC, they typically try to present it as being like it was in the segregationist era.

It is irrational for our state to talk up Hollings given the damage he did to our reputation.

I get triggered when the people who make the false accusations of racism also present Hollings as a great man and a civil rights hero. There's no way we would see the same kind of favorable press for Hollings if he had switched to the GOP.

It is surprising to me that the other people on this forum with your general views have not directly criticized your favorable comments on Strom Thurmond. You are indirectly implying they are tribalists. Perhaps they were impressed by your spouse's resume.

[Charlestondata]

My general political views are neither rigid nor partisan. I am an independent voter.

The town of Edgefield is about 53% Black, yet Republican Strom Thurmond’s likeness in the form of a statue stands downtown, and I have never heard that anyone there has petitioned to have it removed.

I suspect that if someone started that movement, a significant portion of those opposed to removing it would be reflective of what my spouse said, that Thurmond carried about 30-40% of the Black vote in his re-election results because of his service to the Black community in the latter years of his career. Probably even a higher percentage of Black voters voted for him in Edgefield County, that being his home and his having the seniority he has in Congress to bring money home to Black communities.

Ask James Brown’s children. And Hollings was in the same vein in terms of his service to the Black community in the latter years of his career. This is not hard to grasp.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by Vaccinated Masker

Every day people with my general views are accused of being racist. In some cases, the accusers do an implausible race hoax like Jussie Smollet.

It is likely there would be relatively few false accusations of racism today if men like Hollings and Strom had not existed. Every false accusation of racism is based on the fact there were white racists like Hollings and Strom. I blame both the false accusers and men like Strom and Hollings for the false accusations. What Hollings and Strom did still taints SC's image. If somebody is motivated to beat up on SC, they typically try to present it as being like it was in the segregationist era.

You speak as if Fritz and Strom were outliers during the era of Jim Crow when, in fact, they were very much representative of the racially-majority population in their support for Southern de jure segregation.

[Vaccinated Masker]

I didn't make them out as outliers.

The issue for me is people hyping up Hollings. The others are not receiving the Great Man propaganda.

People are inaccurately presenting Hollings as a man who lead SC 'kicking and screaming' out of the segregation era. It appears as SC attorney general, Hollings made the state's case against integration.

The people who hype up Hollings are generally the same group that make wild accusations of racism against other people. The featured speaker at Hollings funeral is notorious for false accusations. He's the king of the race card.

[Vaccinated Masker]

Originally Posted by Charlestondata

My general political views are neither rigid nor partisan. I am an independent voter.

The town of Edgefield is about 53% Black, yet Republican Strom Thurmond’s likeness in the form of a statue stands downtown, and I have never heard that anyone there has petitioned to have it removed.

I suspect that if someone started that movement, a significant portion of those opposed to removing it would be reflective of what my spouse said, that Thurmond carried about 30-40% of the Black vote in his re-election results because of his service to the Black community in the latter years of his career. Probably even a higher percentage of Black voters voted for him in Edgefield County, that being his home and his having the seniority he has in Congress to bring money home to Black communities.

Ask James Brown’s children. And Hollings was in the same vein in terms of his service to the Black community in the latter years of his career. This is not hard to grasp.

Small towns are less likely to have a lot of people who did liberal arts oriented programs in college. Those are generally the people who are into statue removal and renaming buildings. They always conveniently overlook the biggest monument, the name of the party who did the slavery and segregation stuff.

I don't think I've heard about any major riot in small towns the past two years.

[Charlestondata]

Grasping there. No one in Columbia is calling for former segregationist Thurmond’s statue to be removed from the State House grounds. Why? Because he was a former segregationist and had won the hearts of many Black voters by the time he died.

Hollings’s story parallels Thurmond’s in regard to having been a segregationist but later winning the hearts of many Black voters. I’m leaving political parties out of the equation. My opinion about former segregationists who righted themselves isn’t partisan.

[Vaccinated Masker]

CD,

Understood you are a stan for both Hollings and Strom. I don't question your independence on this specific topic. You've gone rogue on it with the big switch theory on the line.

Here's a petition to take down the Strom Thurmond statue. https://www.change.org/p/south-carol...na-state-house

The petition recommends erecting .....wait for it...a Fritz Hollings statue in Strom's place. No mention of the fact Hollings was a segregationist.

There is no doubt the people who wrote this up also beat up on on our school system.