Black woman replaces Alabama newspaper editor who approved KKK

February 22, 2019, 23:22 GMT

By Associated press

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – A white editor of the Alabama newspaper, who advocated for the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, gives control of the small weekly to a black woman.

The Democratic reporter for Linden, Alabama, announced Friday that Elecia R. Dexter would assume the duties of publisher and editor of Goodloe Sutton, who runs the 140-year-old newspaper since the 1960s.

Dexter, 46, told The Associated Press that Sutton would own the newspaper, printed about 3,000 copies, "but I'm taking care of everything."

Sutton had long been publishing editorials insensitive to racism and ethnicity. Dexter hoped that his appointment would let the community know that "it's everyone's diary".

"I think it can be helpful," she said.

The change comes the week after Sutton wrote and published an editorial titled "It's time for the Ku Klux Klan to come back on a night horse". The editorial said that Democrats and "Republican Party Democrats" were plotting to raise taxes, so the Klan should attack their communities.

Sutton, in a later interview with the Montgomery Advertiser, suggested lynching as a means of cleaning Washington. Sutton also asked whether the KKK was violent, claiming that the most feared white supremacist terrorist organization in the United States "killed only a few people."

The University of Auburn and the University of Southern Mississippi have quickly canceled the distinctions previously awarded to Sutton, who had been congratulated two decades ago for stories revealing corruption in the sheriff's office . The Alabama Press Association has censured Sutton and suspended the Democratic rapporteur 's membership.

Dexter, whose family is from rural Marengo, where Linden is located near the Mississippi border, said he started working for the newspaper earlier this year and has a good working relationship with Goodloe. She added, "I told her that there were different ways to make your point."

The newspaper received e-mails from those who supported what Sutton had written and others who were "disgusted" by his statements, she said.

The newspaper dates back to 1879 and its editorials are systematically conservative and often critical of Democrats. The use of the term "democrat" in its name dates back to the time when almost all white conservatives in the south were democrats.