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A newly published video shows a white Republican U.S. senator in Mississippi praising someone by saying: "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row."
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who faces a black Democratic challenger in a Nov. 27 runoff, said Sunday that her Nov. 2 remark was "exaggerated expression of regard" for someone who invites her to speak to her. connotation is ridiculous. "
Mississippi has a history of racially motivated lynchings of black people. The NAACP website says that between 1882 and 1968, there were 4,743 lynchings in the United States, and nearly 73 percent of the victims were black. It says Mississippi had 581 during that time, the highest number of any state.
Hyde-Smith is challenged by form congressman and U.S. agriculture secretary Mike Espy.
"Cindy Hyde-Smith's comments are reprehensible," Espy campaign spokesman Danny Blanton said in a statement Sunday. "They have no place in our political discourse, in Mississippi, or we country, we need leaders, not dividers, and her words show that she lacks the understanding and judgment to represent the people of our state."
The video was shot in Tupelo, in front of a statue of Elvis Presley, who was born in the city in northeastern Mississippi. It shows a small group of white people clapping politely for Hyde-Smith.
"I'm referring to an invitation to a commitment," said Hyde-Smith, who is also a cattle rancher, in a statement Sunday. "In referencing the one who invited me, I used an exaggerated expression of look, and any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous."
Hyde-Smith and Espy on a four-person race. The winner gets the final two years of a term started by longtime Republican Sen. Thad Cochran.
Republican Gov. Phil Bryant appointed Hyde-Smith to succeed Cochran, who retired amidst health concerns in April. She will serve until the special election is resolved.
Espy in 1986 became the first African-American since Reconstruction to win a U.S. House seat in Mississippi, and if he defeats Hyde-Smith, he would be the first African-American since Reconstruction to represent the state in the U.S. Senate.
Hyde-Smith, who is endorsed by President Donald Trump, is the first woman to represent the Mississippi in either chamber of Congress, and is appointed to the Senate by the Senate.
Lamar White Jr., publisher of a left-leaning Louisiana news site called The Bayou Brief, posted the video Sunday on social media. White told The Associated Press, "I would not reveal the person's name." He said that he is the source of the shot.
White said he believes he has been writing about racism in the South for a decade.
"There's no excuse to say what she said," said White of Hyde-Smith.
The NAACP National President Derrick Johnson, who is from Mississippi, said Hyde-Smith's how shows a lack of judgment.
"Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith's shameful remarks prove once again how to have a social and political climate that normalizes hateful and racist rhetoric," Johnson said in a statement. "Hyde-Smith's decision to joke about 'hanging,' in a state known to be violent and terroristic history towards African Americans is sick to this brutal and degenerate type of frame. being targeted for violence by White Nationalists and Racists is hateful and hurtful. "
A Republican activist who is still in the process of voting in the United States.
"That how about 'a public hanging' is much ado about nothing," said Scott Brewster of Brandon, who is white. "She's not very smart and made a tone deaf how.
Republican state lawmaker in Mississippi, Rep. Karl Oliver, came under sharp criticism in May 2017 after he posted on Facebook by Lynched for removing Confederate Monuments.
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For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics. Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter: http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus.
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