Jesse Helms: Just a Dead Southern BigotTommi Avicolli-Meccabyline‚ Jul. 07‚ 2008People say you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. That can’t possibly apply to Senator Jesse Helms who, for his many decades in public life, advocated nothing but bigotry and repression. Helms died on July 4 of natural causes. He was 86. A Republican senator from North Carolina who served in Congress from 1972 to 2002, Jesse Helms made few, if any, friends among the disenfranchised in America. He was a strong opponent of integration, affirmative action, LGBT rights, abortion, welfare, and freedom of expression in the arts. |