ClydeR
01-18-2011, 01:35 PM
Report about speech by Republican Alabama Governor Robert Bentley...
Bentley told a big crowd at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where the late civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once was pastor, that he believed it was important for Alabamians ''that we love and care for each other."
''I was elected as a Republican candidate. But once I became governor ... I became the governor of all the people. I intend to live up to that. I am color blind," Bentley said in a short speech given about an hour after he took the oath of office as governor.
Then Bentley, who for years has been a deacon at First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, gave what sounded like an altar call.
"There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit," Bentley said. ''But if you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister."
Bentley added, ''Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."
More... (http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/01/gov-elect_robert_bentley_inten.html)
Speech by Republican Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour...
Today we are announcing that Mississippi will officially commemorate this momentous time in our state’s and nation’s history with A Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides and Freedom Summer of 1961. A celebration dedicated to reconciliation and remembrance. It is well known that Mississippi did not welcome the Freedom Riders fifty years ago, but today, as its governor, I am proud to host the several days of celebration that will begin on May 22, 2011.
We hope our celebration of the 1961 Freedom Riders will spur a national remembrance of one of the key campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. While it may not have seemed so at the time to the Riders themselves, who were mistreated, beaten and jailed, including many at the State Penitentiary at Parchman, their effort was part of an irresistible tide that inevitably led to the end of de jure segregation.
A lot of reprehensible things took place between the advent of the Freedom Rides in 1961 and enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and finally integration in the bulk of this state’s public schools. Deplorable actions including the murder of innocent people, young men in service to a cause that was right, will always be a stain on our history.
And school integration did not put an end to racial problems or prejudice. However, the 100plus Freedom Riders participating in the 2011 celebration will find Mississippi an enormously changed state as to race relations.
Some of us working on this event may have different views of which government policies and programs – or absence thereof – best serve Freedom.
But no believer in Freedom can defend segregation as acceptable to those who believe our Creator endowed us with certain unalienable rights that include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Hence everyone in Mississippi should welcome this celebration.
More... (http://www.thegovmonitor.com/world_news/united_states/mississippi-to-celebrate-50th-anniversary-of-freedom-riders-44978.html)
Bentley told a big crowd at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where the late civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once was pastor, that he believed it was important for Alabamians ''that we love and care for each other."
''I was elected as a Republican candidate. But once I became governor ... I became the governor of all the people. I intend to live up to that. I am color blind," Bentley said in a short speech given about an hour after he took the oath of office as governor.
Then Bentley, who for years has been a deacon at First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, gave what sounded like an altar call.
"There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit," Bentley said. ''But if you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister."
Bentley added, ''Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."
More... (http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/01/gov-elect_robert_bentley_inten.html)
Speech by Republican Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour...
Today we are announcing that Mississippi will officially commemorate this momentous time in our state’s and nation’s history with A Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides and Freedom Summer of 1961. A celebration dedicated to reconciliation and remembrance. It is well known that Mississippi did not welcome the Freedom Riders fifty years ago, but today, as its governor, I am proud to host the several days of celebration that will begin on May 22, 2011.
We hope our celebration of the 1961 Freedom Riders will spur a national remembrance of one of the key campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. While it may not have seemed so at the time to the Riders themselves, who were mistreated, beaten and jailed, including many at the State Penitentiary at Parchman, their effort was part of an irresistible tide that inevitably led to the end of de jure segregation.
A lot of reprehensible things took place between the advent of the Freedom Rides in 1961 and enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and finally integration in the bulk of this state’s public schools. Deplorable actions including the murder of innocent people, young men in service to a cause that was right, will always be a stain on our history.
And school integration did not put an end to racial problems or prejudice. However, the 100plus Freedom Riders participating in the 2011 celebration will find Mississippi an enormously changed state as to race relations.
Some of us working on this event may have different views of which government policies and programs – or absence thereof – best serve Freedom.
But no believer in Freedom can defend segregation as acceptable to those who believe our Creator endowed us with certain unalienable rights that include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Hence everyone in Mississippi should welcome this celebration.
More... (http://www.thegovmonitor.com/world_news/united_states/mississippi-to-celebrate-50th-anniversary-of-freedom-riders-44978.html)