A few weeks after taking over the Alabama newspaper, which called for the Klan to "go back on horseback," the black editor retires

Elecia R. Dexter, who took over last month from Linden's Democratic reporter, told CNN Saturday that she left the weekly Monday because she could no longer work with her owner and former editor Goodloe Sutton. . He wrote a breathtaking editorial with the title "The Klan needs to ride again " in the edition of February 14.

"It's time for the Ku Klux Klan to come back into the night," Sutton wrote. "Democrats from the Republican Party and Democrats plan to raise taxes in Alabama."

Sutton then fueled the controversy further, informing the Montgomery Advertiser that he was urging the White Supremacy Group to "clean up the premises of D.C." via lynchings. "We're going to take out the hemp ropes, put them on top of a limb and hang them all," Sutton told the newspaper.

He stressed that he did not call for the hanging of all Americans, but simply "socialist communists".

"It looks like the Klan would be welcome to attack the closed communities up there," Sutton wrote in the editorial.

Beginning in the late 19th century, Klan members used nocturnal rides to terrorize blacks and their white allies with violence, including lynchings and firebombing.

When the announcer asked him if he recognized the Klan as a white supremacist group, Sutton compared this project to that of the NAACP and said: "The Klan was not violent until it was necessary. . "

Dexter describes a weird and short term mandate to the newspaper

The fallout was immediate. US Senator Doug Jones, D-Alabama and others have called for Sutton's resignation.

The School of Communication at the University of Southern Mississippi announced that it had removed Sutton, a former student, from his Hall of Fame of Mass Communication and Journalism "in the light of from recent and continuing history of Mr. Sutton's racist remarks.

Auburn University's Advisory Board on Journalism has also deprived Sutton of its 2009 distinguished community journalism award.

Dexter was suddenly promoted last month to direct the document in a "new direction," the Democratic reporter said. The newspaper describes its new publisher and publisher as a "strategic leader with expertise in human resources, operations and change management".

But less than a month later, Dexter came out. She described a strange and short post at the helm of the weekly, where she started as an office worker and held the senior executive position despite the lack of journalism experience.

Sutton, she said, sent a modified version of the February 28 issue to various media outlets, including a high-defense article defending her editorial on the Klan and attacking journalist Montgomery Advertiser who interviewed him. . Dexter said that she had to issue a press release qualifying the falsification problem created without her authorization.

Dexter, in a separate press release, also accused Sutton of interfering in the Thursday edition of the newspaper, claiming that it did not reflect his "views or thoughts". She said that she was retiring and that the paper was being sold.

"The decision to accept the role of publisher / publisher of The Democrat Reporter has been an honor and I do not regret anything," she wrote. "I'm not discouraged, the healing will come to the wonderful and loving people here."

The newspaper courted the controversy before

Linden is a city of about 2,000 inhabitants located in west central Alabama. Sutton told USA Today in 2015 that the draw of The Democrat-Reporter, which was once more than 7,000, had dropped to around 3,000 subscribers.

Klan's play is not the first controversial editorial of his pages.

In October 2017, the newspaper published an editorial on NFL players kneeling in the national anthem protesting police brutality and racial injustice.

"Some news programs do a lot for black football players kneeling in the stadium," the editorial said. "It's what we taught blacks two hundred years ago: kneel in front of a white man."

A July 2016 editorial mocked President Barack Obama, calling him "the king of Kenya" and complained of "the way uncivilized tribes of Africa are always directing things".

In April, the newspaper published a political cartoon ridiculing Palestinians.