KKK editorial: editor slated

DEMOCRATIC Alabama senator Doug Jones has called for a newspaper editor to resign after publishing a “disgusting, racist, hateful” editorial in which he called for the Ku Klux Klan to return.

“OMG! What rock did this guy crawl out from under? This editorial is absolutely disgusting and he should resign now! I have seen what happens when we stand by while people publish racist, hateful views. Words matter. Actions matter. Resign now,” Jones tweeted on Monday.

Last week, the Democrat-Reporter newspaper’s editor, Goodloe Sutton, wrote an editorial that called for “the Ku Klux Klan to ride again”.

“Seems like the Klan would be welcome to raid the gated communities up there (north-east US),” Sutton wrote.

The piece went viral after an Auburn University student newspaper reporter posted it online.

Sutton defended his stance and even doubled down on the rhetoric.

“If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out DC, we’d all been better off,” Sutton told the Montgomery Advertiser. “We’ll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them.

“These are socialist-communists we’re talking about (not real Americans). Do you know what socialism and communism is?” Sutton asked.

The newspaper is based in Linden, a small town near the Alabama-Mississippi border of barely more than 2000 people.

Sutton also falsely claimed the Klan killed “but a few people” and argued it “wasn’t violent until they needed to be”.