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The Washington Post

Two decades ago, the editor of the tiny Democrat-Reporter newspaper in Linden, Alabama, was being talked about as a potential contender for the Pulitzer Prize.
A congressional citation read on the floor of the House of Representatives in 1998 lauded “his truly American heroism and dedication to the truth” and called him “one of Alabama’s finest and most ethical journalists.”

Glowing profiles in The New York Times, People magazine and the American Journalism Review highlighted his tenacious reporting and down-home Southern charm.
Now, Goodloe Sutton is back in the news again – this time because he recently called for mass lynchings and suggested that the Ku Klux Klan should return to “clean out” Washington.
Former Ku Klux Klan leader convicted of three murders dies in jail
“Time for the Ku Klux Klan to night ride again,” began a February 14 editorial in the newspaper, which went on to claim that Democrats, along with some Republicans, were planning to raise taxes in Alabama.
It concluded, “Seems like the Klan would be welcome to raid the gated communities up there.”

Sutton, who is also the paper’s publisher, could not immediately be reached for comment. He told the Montgomery Advertiser on Monday that he had written the editorial, which ran without a byline, and stood by it.
“If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out DC, we’d all been better off,” he told the paper, explaining, “We’ll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them.”
Catholic priest reveals his Ku Klux Klan past
During the same conversation, Sutton argued that the KKK “didn’t kill but a few people” and “wasn’t violent until they needed to be,” the Advertiser reported on Monday. He further suggested that the Klan, a white supremacist hate group, was comparable to the NAACP. Sutton also added that people could call him, write him a letter or boycott the paper if they disagreed with his views.

OMG! What rock did this guy crawl out from under? This editorial is absolutely disgusting & he should resign -NOW!
I have seen what happens when we stand by while people-especially those with influence- publish racist, hateful views.
Words matter. Actions matter. Resign now! https://t.co/V1V1vxDBKH
— Doug Jones (@DougJones) February 19, 2019

When the Advertiser’s Melissa Brown asked him whether it was appropriate for a newspaper publisher to suggest that Americans should be lynched, Sutton replied, “It’s not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communists we’re talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?”
Ku Klux Klan lagging rise of US far right
The editorial – which, like the rest of the paper, was not published online – first started getting attention on Monday afternoon when two student-journalists at Auburn University posted photographs on Twitter. On Monday night, Senator Doug Jones, a Democrat of Alabama, who prosecuted two members of the Klan for their role in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four young girls, called the editorial “disgusting” and demanded Sutton’s immediate resignation.
“I have seen what happens when we stand by while people – especially those with influence – publish racist, hateful views,” he wrote.
Echoing the call for Sutton’s resignation was Alabama Democrat Representative Terri Sewell, who wrote, “For the millions of people of color who have been terrorised by white supremacy, this kind of ‘editorialising’ about lynching is not a joke – it is a threat.”

The criticism was a sharp contrast from 20 years ago, when Sutton was honoured on the floor of Congress. “His story is a shining example of the best and the brightest which occurs in America when a single citizen has the bravery to stand alone, in the face of mounting pressure and odds, and stands up for justice and equality,” said Representative Earl Hilliard, the first person of colour to represent Alabama in Congress since Reconstruction, in his May 1998 proclamation.
Ku Klux Klan emboldened by Donald Trump’s election
Back then, Sutton was being celebrated for his dogged investigative journalism in the southwestern Alabama city with less than 3,000 residents, which resulted in the local sheriff being sent to federal prison.
He and his wife Jean, who worked alongside him at the paper, had spent nearly four years publishing stories that showed that Marengo County Sheriff Roger Davis was siphoning off government funds, from cashing reimbursement checks that were meant to go to the sheriff’s office to buying an all-terrain vehicle for his daughter with a check from the department’s bank account.
Talking to the Associated Press in 1998, Sutton said that deputies had threatened to plant drugs in their home, and that the couple and their oldest son had repeatedly been pulled over and harassed. Davis “started telling anyone who would listen that my oldest son was involved in drugs, my wife was having affairs and I was drunk all the time,” he said. He was finally vindicated in 1997, when Davis pleaded guilty to charges including extortion and soliciting bribes.
In 1927, Donald Trump’s father was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan riot in New York
That same year, two of Davis’s deputies, Wilmer “Sonny” Breckenridge and Robert Pickens, were arrested along with 68 others in a massive drug bust that, at the time, was the largest in southern Alabama history.
When Sutton’s comments on the Klan began getting attention on Monday, long-time readers pointed out that it wasn’t the first time that the paper’s editorial page had endorsed extreme or openly racist views.
In May 2015, an editorial stated that the mayor of a city “up north” had “displayed her African heritage by not enforcing civilised law.” Another, published in June of that year, called for drug dealers, kidnappers, rapists, thieves, and murderers to be hung “on the courthouse lawn where the public can watch.”
“Dope heads know how to grow marijuana but not cotton,” one August 2014 editorial read. “They don’t pay sales taxes on what they grow so this doesn’t register with the economists who compile the statistics about jobs and employment. This market is dominated by blacks.”
That same month, President Barack Obama was described by the paper as a “Kenyan orphan president” who was elected because Americans thought “it would be cool to have a coloured man” in the White House.
Later, amid the national controversy over football players kneeling during the national anthem, the Democrat-Reporter declared, “That’s what black folks were taught to do two hundred years ago, kneel before a white man … Let them kneel!”
As news of Sutton’s February 14 editorial went viral, organisations that once lauded Sutton rebuked him. Officials from the University of Southern Mississippi’s School of Communication announced Tuesday that they had removed Sutton from their hall of fame, in which he was inducted in 2007, after his “call for violence and the return of the Ku Klux Klan” and “recent and continued history of racist remarks.”

The Auburn Plainsman reported Auburn University’s Journalism Advisory Council on Tuesday stripped Sutton of a community journalism award he received in 2009. Anthony Cook, chair of the journalism advisory council, told the Plainsman that many in the community were shocked to see what Sutton had written.
“The initial thought was hopefully this is satire. But looking at the reporting around the editorial, we see that he has not backed down from anything he said in the editorial,” Cook said. “In fact, he’s doubled down.”


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Racism and other prejudice

Fury and disbelief as Alabama newspaper editor Goodloe Sutton calls for Ku Klux Klan to ride again and start lynching

Goodloe Sutton is pictured in 1997 presenting the International Press Freedom Award during a ceremony sponsored by the Committee To Protect Journalists in New York. Photo: AFP

The February 14 editorial in the Democrat-Reporter. Photo: Twitter

Members of a group called the Honorable Sacred Knights of the Ku Klux Klan burn a cross in the suburbs of Madison, Indiana, on Jan. 26, 2019. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

Members of a group called the Honorable Sacred Knights of the Ku Klux Klan hold a secret meeting in the suburbs of Madison, Indiana, on Jan. 26, 2019. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

FILE - In this Sept. 27, 1987, file photo, the Invisible Empire, Ku Klux Klan members wearing traditional robes form a circle around a burning cross in Rumford, Maine. Racial stereotypes and racist imagery in popular culture seemed to be everywhere in the chaotic 1980s when future Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and future Attorney General Mark Herring admitted dressing up in blackface. (AP Photo/Scott Perry, File)

Edgar Ray Killen, former Ku Klux Klan leader convicted of three murders, dies in jail aged 92

Edgar Ray Killen on trial in 2005. Photo: AP

Catholic priest reveals his cross-burning past in the Ku Klux Klan, and urges white supremacists to repent

Father William Aitcheson, a priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Virginia. Aitcheson is taking a leave of absence after disclosing he once was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Photo: AP

FILE - In this May 3, 1982 file photo, President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan walk with Barbara and Phillip Butler and their daughter Natasha, outside the family's home in College Park, Md., May 3, 1982. Father William Aitcheson, a Virginia priest is taking a leave of absence after disclosing he once was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Aitcheson, then-a 22-year-old member of the Ku Klux Klan, was convicted of a criminal misdemeanor in the case and sentenced to 90 days in jail. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)

Ku Klux Klan not getting a lift from ascendant US far-right inspired by Trump’s win

A Ku Klux Klan group from North Carolina protested in Justice Park in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday. Photo: The Washington Post

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA - JULY 08: The Ku Klux Klan protests on July 8, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. The KKK was protesting the planned removal of a statue of General Lee in Charlottesville. Chet Strange/Getty Images/AFP == FOR NEWSPAPERS, INTERNET, TELCOS & TELEVISION USE ONLY ==

Members of the Ku Klux Klan face counter-protesters as they rally in support of Confederate monuments in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S. July 8, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

‘Our membership grows by the day’: Ku Klux Klan emboldened by Donald Trump’s election

A member of th Ku Klux Klan attends a rally in South Carolina. Photo: TNS

epa05655888 US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during the first stop of his 'USA Thank You Tour 2016' rally at US Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 01 December 2016. EPA/MARK LYONS

In 1927, Donald Trump’s father was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan riot in New York

Fred Trump, the late father of Republican presidential candidate Donald TRump. Photo: Wikipedia

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‘It’s not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communists we’re talking about’


‘It’s not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communists we’re talking about.’


United States

Donald Trump

US Politics

Fury and disbelief as Alabama newspaper editor Goodloe Sutton calls for Ku Klux Klan to ride again and start lynching

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}‘It’s not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communists we’re talking about’

‘It’s not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communists we’re talking about’