A10
ST. LOUIS AMERICAN • JUNE 25 - JULY 1, 2015
South Carolina honors racist terrorist
By Ryan J. Reilly Of The Huffington Post Benjamin Ryan “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman was a popular politician, a campaign finance reformer, a wealthy landowner, a successful farmer, one of the founding fathers of a university, the governor of South Carolina, a U.S. senator and was even once considered a potential Democratic presidential candidate. Yet much like Dylann Roof – if indeed he killed nine people at an AfricanAmerican church in Charleston on June 17, as charged – Tillman was a racist terrorist. While authorities in South Carolina have one of these men behind bars, the state is simultaneously honoring the other racist terrorist with an eight-foot statue on the grounds of the statehouse. There has been a lot of discussion about the Confederate flag that flies on the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse in Columbia, which was still at full mast after the U.S. and state flags were lowered to half-mast. But just steps away from that flag, South Carolina is honoring Tillman, who – as columnist Will Moredock wrote for Charleston City Paper last year – most historians today regard “as a fire-breathing racist, opportunist and demagogue
Ben “Pitchfork” Tillman who played on the worst of human nature to promote himself to the highest levels of state government.” As has been reported about Roof, Tillman was proud of the role he played in slaughtering African Americans, and Tillman was involved in killing a black state senator. The black state senator who Roof allegedly killed, Clementa C. Pinckney, was shot at a Bible study at a church. The black state senator killed under Tillman’s watch, Simon Coker, was – according to Tillman’s own account – on his knees praying when he was shot. Tillman said that while it may “appear a ruthless and cruel thing,” the struggle he was involved in “meant more than life or death. It involved everything we held dear, Anglo-Saxon civilization included.”
Tillman said on the floor of the U.S. Senate that the South had “never recognized the right of the Negro to govern white men, and we never will.” Tillman said he and others had “done our level best” to stop black citizens from voting, and that white supremacists had “scratched our heads to find out how we could eliminate the last one of them. We stuffed ballot boxes. We shot them. We are not ashamed of it.” Speaking about the Hamburg Massacre of 1876, when his militia killed black Republicans, Tillman said he and his men intended to “strike terror,” and that leaving “seven dead Negroes lying stark and stiff” had the impact they desired. The white supremacist group Stormfront calls Tillman one of “the greatest men South Carolina and indeed this nation has ever produced.” The statue honoring Tillman was unveiled in 1940, just 75 years ago. A bill to remove the statue from the grounds of the statehouse stalled in 2008. But the statue isn’t the only way Tillman is still being honored: Just a few months ago, in February 2015, the board of trustees at Clemson University voted not to change the school’s clock tower, which is named Tillman Hall. Reprinted with permission from The Huffington Post.
Prayer for all fathers By Leonard Warner For The St. Louis American On Father’s Day, I think of the many fathers, who like me, experience another wave of grief at the loss of a young child to senseless gun violence. Becoming a father to my son, Tamir, was truly a special gift. He was the pinnacle of love and a constant reminder from God that life could be beautiful. But after Tamir’s life was senselessly taken this past November, the thought of Father’s Day is just another unpleasant reminder of the worst day of my life. There is not a day that goes by that I do not think of my
son and the joy he brought to us all. Visiting his memorial each week breaks my heart. The pain is overwhelming at times, but I find comfort in the love of my community, who continues to stand with my family, and activists such as the Cleveland 8 Leonard who all seek Warner to bring my son’s killers to justice. Witnessing my son’s brutal murder on videotape is one of the most difficult images I have been forced to cope with. I will never go back to normal,
because I will never get my son back. I can only cherish his memory and join in the fight to ensure that everyone knows that #BlackLivesMatter. As I continue to hold onto my faith in God, I wanted to pray for all the fathers around the world, that you might never have the unfortunate experience of burying your child and sharing in this grief. Please keep me lifted up in your prayers as I hold onto hope that, in due season, things will begin to change. I love you, Tamir, and I can’t wait to see your smiling face when we meet again in paradise. Leonard Warner is the father of Tamir Rice.
‘Building a relevant, credible community newspaper’
American publisher’s 2015 Media Person of the Year speech
By Donald M. Suggs Of The St. Louis American I want to thank the Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis for this prestigious and coveted award and offer my hearty congratulations to this evening’s other awardees – two highly respected and esteemed journalists, Jennifer Blome and Don Marsh. I am even more grateful and appreciative because this is an award from other communications professionals. So I accept on behalf of the dedication and hard work of so many members of The St. Louis American team, current and past, who have contributed to our ongoing mission of building a relevant, credible community newspaper. The American is an advocacy newspaper that is committed to constructive reform and change – change that is essential because, while we see some increased diversity, we are far from a post-racial society. The problems we face are deeply embedded in our history and in our economic and political structures and are a barrier to a more just and equitable society. As the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is currently meeting in St. Louis, said, “We mourn those tragic events in which African Americans and others have lost their lives in altercations with law enforcement. Racism is an evil which endures in our society and in our church.” His outspoken statement added that there must be change – change that “must address root causes of these conflicts: a violent, sorrowful history of racial injustice, accompanied by a lack of educational, employment and housing opportunities.” Pope Paul VI said: “If you want peace, work for justice.” These words have resonated with the courageous, young, black millennials and their
St. Louis American publisher Donald M. Suggs accepted the Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis’ 2015 award for Media Person of the Year, along with Jennifer Blome and Don Marsh, on June 11 at Edward Jones Headquarters in St. Louis County. Photo by Lawrence Bryant supporters who have provided much of the driving force behind a sustained protest movement that seeks and demands transformational change. As a community newspaper, we see ourselves as a journalistic enterprise that is strongly identified with its community, its unique experiences and concerns. As a case in point, The American was covered in an article in the Harvard University-based Nieman Reports entitled, “Local Weeklies Are Covering the Communities Big Dailies Ignore.” Nieman Reports noted that staff “had an advantage over the journalists who flocked to Ferguson in the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown Jr. on August 9, 2014.” I will quote this report at length. The African-American community of greater St. Louis already knew and trusted the paper, which has covered that community since 1928. Missouri State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who represents Ferguson, calls The St. Louis American “the only source of information we have that’s balanced and of interest.” And Adolphus M. Pruitt II, president of the local NAACP, says, “They cover those things that are truly emotionally charged for the black community, in ways that go into detail on the subject and the issue.” In addition to its news reports, editorials, and widely read Political EYE column, The American’s coverage of churches, community organizations, and social events
has helped keep the AfricanAmerican community tied together as it dispersed from the central city to the suburbs, says University of Missouri journalism professor Earnest L. Perry Jr. “Say you grew up in one part of St. Louis that was heavily African-American and moved to another part that wasn’t, you’d still have a link back to that community” through the weekly paper, Perry says. That kind of connection is a hallmark of the community journalism that weeklies provide. Often, local newspapers are the top source for news about a community, a source that has grown in importance as regional papers have pulled back from covering outlying communities over the past 15 years. Weeklies with a strong editorial voice bring communities together - or stir debate – over issues of great local import. Some weeklies, like The American, cover not only a geographical community but also a “community of interest,” the term used to describe groups with a shared orientation, whether racial, ethnic, occupational, or otherwise. Yet, we share, along with all of our colleagues in media, an interest in and commitment to the collective well-being of our region. These remarks were delivered June 11 upon acceptance of the Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis’ awarding Suggs 2015 Media Person of the Year, along with Blome and Marsh.