Black Woman Now Running Paper Owned by KKK Editorialist

An interesting plot twist in the Goodloe Sutton saga.

Last week, we discussed the case of Goodloe Sutton, the small-town Alabama newspaper editor who published an editorial calling for the Ku Klux Klan to ride again, cleansing DC of Democrats and socialists. The controversy has spawned an interesting plot twist.

NBC News (“Black woman replacing Alabama newspaper editor who endorsed KKK“):

A white Alabama newspaper editor who advocated for the revival of the Ku Klux Klan is turning over control of the small weekly to a black woman.

The Democrat-Reporter of Linden, Alabama, announced Friday that Elecia R. Dexter will take over as publisher and editor from Goodloe Sutton, who has run the 140-year-old paper since the 1960s.

Dexter, 46, told The Associated Press that Sutton will retain ownership of the newspaper, which has a circulation of about 3,000, “but I will handle everything else.”

Sutton had a history of publishing racially and ethnically insensitive editorials, and Dexter said she hoped her appointment would let the community know “this is everybody’s paper.”

“I think it can be helpful,” she said.

[…]

Dexter, whose family is from rural Marengo County, where Linden is located near the Mississippi line, said she began working at the paper earlier this year and has a good working relationship with Goodloe. She added: “I told him there were some different ways you could have made your point.”

She is not wrong.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. CSK says:

    Sutton announced his retirement plan: He’s going to “drink beer and sex young women.”
    So he said. Not “have sex with young women” (good luck there), but “sex young women.”

    2
  2. grumpy realist says:

    Wonder what pressure was put on Mr. Klu-Klux-Klan to get him to retire? And by whom? Usually it’s very hard to dislodge people who are starting to mentally unravel because they don’t want to admit that they have problems.

    1
  3. James Joyner says:

    @grumpy realist: Good question, especially since it’s a paper owned by the family for generations. One presumes there’s some sort of board of directors. Or maybe just the kids seeing the inheritance go down the drain?

  4. Mister Bluster says:

    …retirement plan…

    The night dispatcher at the Sleepytown Yellow Cab said when he retired he was going to invest his money in “houses and lots…whorehouses and lots of whiskey”

  5. grumpy realist says:

    @James Joyner: If the kids shoved Dear Loopy Daddy out they’ve got a heck of a lot more gumption than the Trump sprogs.

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  6. An Interested Party says:

    I told him there were some different ways you could have made your point.

    Understatement of the decade…

  7. Stormy Dragon says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Wonder what pressure was put on Mr. Klu-Klux-Klan to get him to retire?

    A sudden lack of advertisers, I suspect.