REVEREND AL SHARPTON CALLS FOR A MEETING WITH RNC CHAIRMAN OVER LOTT
Mon Dec 09 2002 11:49:18 ET
New York - (December 9, 2002) - Reverend Al Sharpton, President of the National Action Network, has asked for a meeting with RNC (Republican National Committee) Chair Marc Racicot and has announced he will begin a national campaign calling for the removal of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. According to published reports, Lott said that �the United States would have been better off had Strom Thurmond won his 1948 presidential campaign.� Thurmond ran for President as a candidate for the breakaway Dixiecrat Party and was a known segregationist when he ran for President in 1948.
According to Sharpton: �Lott�s statements are blatant racism at the highest order, and are insulting to all Americans at a time that America needs to be unified.� In a time of unprecedented attacks on the American way of life, to have the majority leader of the U.S. Senate give tacit support to a white segregationist�s political philosophy, is frightening and offensive.�
�The Republican Party has said that it wants to reach out to minorities, whom have historically felt uncomfortable with being members of their party in any great numbers. Now the Republican Party has an opportunity to show they sincerely reach out, by repudiating Lott�s statements and asking him to step aside as Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate.�
�I can think of any number of occasions where I and others have been called upon to denounce the statements of Black leaders who aren�t affiliated with the U.S. government and held no elected office. Here we have an elected Republican and selected party leader, and we shall see where the Republican Party really stands.�
