Haley Barbour's Brother, Jeppie Barbour, During Tenure as Yazoo City Mayor Said Blacks 'Not Listenin To White People Like They Used To'

Jeppie Barbour, brother of MS Governor Haley Barbour, said during his tenure as Yazoo City mayor, "blacks not listenin to white people like they used to."

Well, the fruit certainly doesn't fall far from the tree, so to speak. While Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour was defending a racist organization, the Citizens Council in his hometown of Yazoo City, and portrayed himself as being oblivious to the hell blacks went through during the civil rights movement. Enter his older brother, Jeppie Barbour, who was very aware of what happened during that dark period in America's history while he was mayor for several years beginning in 1968. According to the Talking Points Memo, that meant homeboy was in office during the court-ordered integration of the city's schools, an integration the elder Barbour saw as inevitable. Here's an excerpt from TPM:

While mayor, Jeppie Barbour became a central figure in reporter Willie Morris' 1971 book about the integration of Yazoo City. The book largely portrayed Barbour as a relative moderate on race.

But during one interview for the book, Barbour told Morris that he was having trouble working with the town's biracial commission, complaining that whites could no longer appoint black commissioners of their choosing. From the book, as quoted at length by HuffPo's Amanda Terkel:

"Maybe five years ago," he said, "you could've appointed a colored man yourself. Now you simply can't get away with it. They're goin' to have to pick their own leaders. You could've gotten on radio five years ago using these very words, 'George Collins is this ni**er we've appointed,' and could've gotten away with it. I guess they're just goin' through a state of being rebellious and hard-nosed and not listenin' to white people like they used to."

So, blacks aren't listing to white people like they used to. Wow, now I am pretty convinced that Haley Barbour's comments and admiration of the Citizens Council came from his heart. Neither he nor his brother really give one hoot about what blacks went through during the civil rights era. With all this racist rhetoric emanating from the lips of Haley Barbour, the same standard that was applied to then-presidential candidate Barack Obama in the hot mess over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's comments, should be applied to Haley Barbour. We don't want someone who trivializes the black experience in this country and adores a racist organization to ever get the chance to even run for the presidency.