Face of segregationist law in South, Sheriff Jim Clark dies at 84

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Source: The Associated Press via Yahoo News

MONTGOMERY, Ala. Former Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark, whose violent confrontations with voting rights marchers in Selma gave momentum to the civil rights movement in the 1960s, has died at 84.

Clark, who wore a "Never" button on his sheriff's uniform to show his opposition to black voter registration, died at an Elba nursing home late Monday after years of declining health due to a stroke and heart surgery, funeral home officials said Wednesday.

"He was a very, very mean man. His meanness really served simply to express the subtle evil of the system of segregation," said Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor and United Nations ambassador who organized voter registration efforts in Selma in 1965.

Back then, Selma was majority black but only 350 blacks were registered to vote. As sheriff, Clark manhandled voting rights leaders as blacks lined up day after day to try to register to vote. Each day they were thwarted as the short-fused Clark locked up blacks, including older women and school children.

Read more: http://www.dailycomet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070606/APN/706061787

[bluestateguy]

1. Well, 1 less vote for Jeff Sessions in 2008

Good riddance.

[ProudDad]

2. So dies one of the best "friends"

the Civil Rights Movement had:

"U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., recalled Wednesday that Clark arrested him when he led a group to the courthouse to try to register to vote on Jan. 18, 1965. On later days, Lewis saw Clark hit and club others.

"In a strange way, what he did and what he said made contributions to the struggle," Lewis said.

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"He was the perfect opposition for the movement in Selma because Dr. King and the other leaders knew he would overreact," said Sam Walker, consultant for the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma.

Efforts to register black voters in west Alabama had not been getting much media attention in early 1965 until Jimmie Lee Jackson was slain during a march in Marion and Clark began roughing up voting activists in Selma.

"The movement needed Jim Clark to act crazy so the media would become interested in the movement," said Walker, who now displays Clark's "Never" button at the voting rights museum."

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Of course today the MSM would NOT have broadcast Clark's antics and the movement would never get off the ground.

500 channels and nothing worth watching...

[muntrv]

3. May Sheriff Clark spend eternity shining MLK's shoes.

:evilgrin:

[beyurslf]

4. I hope he gets to the afterlife and finds it is run by an angry black woman.

[Posteritatis]

9. Or a saintly one. (nt)

[kskiska]

5. No regrets

In a 2006 interview with the Montgomery Advertiser, Clark said, "Basically, I'd do the same thing today if I had to do it all over again. I did what I thought was right to uphold the law."

[WildClarySage]

6. Proof that only the good die young.

[karlrschneider]

7. Such a shame.

That he lived that long.

[Pastiche423]

8. Ya, but his last years

were full of pain and declining health.

[bamacrat]

10. I was in Birmingham today and I saw a "C The Sheriff" sticker on the back of an SUV.

Didnt know what it was until now, what morons.