Maine Republican Governor Paul LePage said Tuesday that Georgia Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights icon, should thank Abraham Lincoln and other Republican presidents for freeing the slaves.
On WVOM Maine radio’s George Hale and Ric Tyler Show, LePage said:
“John Lewis ought to look at history. It was Abraham Lincoln that freed the slaves. It was Rutherford B. Hayes and Ulysses S. Grant that fought against Jim Crow laws. A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice.”
Yes, he actually said that. As a native Mainer, I wish I could say I’m surprised, but that would be far from the truth. This quote is coming from the same man who told the NAACP “kiss my butt,” back in 2011.
I ask that you please don’t hold it against my state, both times he’s been elected (yes, he was re-elected. God, it hurts to write that) he won with less than half of the vote due to third party candidates.
Idiotic And Historically Inaccurate
But that brings us to today. A white, Republican governor from Maine just told a man who had his skull fractured by Alabama state troopers during the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 that he should thank 19th century Republican presidents for fighting for his civil rights. It’s an overwhelmingly myopic and moronic thing to say. To make it even worse – if that’s possible – historians say that LePage’s claims about the Jim Crow laws are incorrect.
According to Colby College professor Dan Shea, Jim Crow Laws didn’t even exist during the Grant administration. Furthermore, an electoral deal that put Hayes in office actually led to the end of Reconstruction, which set the stage for the creation of Jim Crow laws in the South.
Shea also sees the irony in LePage’s quote, saying:
“Paul LePage is going to give John Lewis a tutorial on the history of black oppression in the United States? That’s rich.”
LePage’s Worst Gaffe Yet
Gov. Paul LePage has been a disaster for Maine. On an almost weekly basis he says something so idiotic that you think he’s finally reached rock bottom… Until next week.
In all honesty, given who he is talking to in this instance, I think this might finally be it. I think he has finally made his most ignorant statement. But knowing LePage, I’ll be waiting to see what he says next week.
Click the video below to hear the full quote from Gov. LePage’s radio segment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fF-H72KNPM
Featured image By Matt Gagnoon Via Wikimedia Commons/CC-By-SA-4.0
