As fellow senators and staff

members cooked up some honor for U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, Sen. Trent

Lott said, "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond

ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest

of the country had of followed our lead we wouldn't have had all these

problems over all these years, either."

Now, according to basic history

taught in Alabama, the words is that the political party headed by Thurmond,

the Dixiecrats, organized in response to President Harry S. Truman's proposed

1948 civil rights package, understood by many whites as the greatest threatened

federal intrusion into the South since Reconstruction.

The package consisted of four

primary pieces of legislation: abolition of the poll tax, a federal antilynching

law, desegregation legislation, and a permanent Federal Employment Practices

Committee (FEPC) to prevent racial discrimination in jobs funded by federal

dollars.

Let me ask, what greater insult

could be made to American blacks, particularly to those in the South,

but for words to come out of one's mouth intimating that the country could

have been better off without federal antilynching laws. Or that the tax

to vote should have been sustained?

But Trent Lott is not the only

one who should garner the prophet's business. Sen. Edward Kennedy is a

joke to his faith. He was born into the Catholic faith and has maintained

over the years close ties with Catholic leaders. Yet, out of his mouth

comes death for the unborn. Kennedy is no more a Catholic than I am a

Buddhist. The words out of his heart betray him. If his heart were right

with his faith, he would come out whether politically correct or incorrect

and declare himself pro-life.

Just as if Sen. Lott's heart

has been right with his faith, he could have never endorsed the 1948 ticket

ex post facto. There are many ways to be congenial at a birthday party

other than political endorsement.

The issue, in my viewpoint,

is not the current rhetoric from Lott, but what's really resident in his

heart. I am afraid he still holds residence in an all-white neighborhood.

John Hatcher

Fayetteville

[Hatcher is a columnist

for The Citizen and pastor of Outreach International Center.]