Ben Jealous, President of the NAACP, declared at last week’s annual convention that the impetus for the Tea Party is hatred of nonwhite people and resentment of a black president.  Of the rise of the movement, Jealous announced, “Here comes the genetic descendent of the White Citizens Council, burst from its coffin.”

I don’t know if Tea Partiers are genetically descendent from the White Citizens Council or not.  (Hey—isn’t an obsession with “genetic descendents” usually associated with racism?)

I do know that they’re not politically descendent.

The overwhelming majority of voters and congressmen who identify with the Tea Party are Republicans.

In contrast, the early leaders of the White Citizens Council were Louisiana politicians William Rainach and Joseph Waggonner, Jr., justice Leander Perez, and publisher Ned Touchstone, all Democrats.  The group was formed in reaction to political activities carried out by the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, led by black Republican T. R. M. Howard.

As part of its recent campaign against the Tea Party, the NAACP posted on its website a slideshow of Tea Party rally signs bearing such patently, explicitly anti-black sentiments as “Now Look!  Nice People Forced To Protest!  This Must Be Serious,” “Obama & His Gang of Thieves = America’s Toxic Assets,” “Freeloading Illegals Are Raping U.S. Taxpayers,” “Obama Was Not Bowing.  He Was Sucking Saudi Jewels!” “It’s 1939 Germany All Over Again,” “The American Taxpayers Are the Jews for Obama’s Ovens,” and “Hang ‘Em High!  Traitors in Congress—Pelosi, Reid, Waters, Schumer, Frank, Dodd, Conyers, Kerry, Clinton, Kennedy.”  read more »