"With white supremacists emboldened and a national spotlight shining on bigotry and hate, 67 former state attorneys general are calling on Americans and their leaders to condemn hatred unequivocally," reports Maggie Astor to The New York Times.
In February 1976, Edward R. Fields, a grand dragon in the Ku Klux Klan, released then state attorneys general Baxley's "kiss my ass" response. Four decades later, Mr. Baxley's example serves as inspiration for "all who seek to equivocate in times of moral crisis." Less than two weeks since a man drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters at a rally of white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia, Baxley provides inspiration for "all who seek to equivocate in times of moral crisis." "There are times in the life of a nation, or a president, or a state attorney general, when one is called upon to respond directly to the voice of hate," conclude the former attorney generals.
"Anybody that espouses that rhetoric and that doctrine is not just expressing a difference of opinion -- they're advocating the most horrific acts that you can imagine towards innocent people," says Mr. Baxley. "It just cannot be tolerated in a just society, or else you get something like you had in Nazi Germany. You just can't allow that to take root."
"Bill drew the line," says former Maine attorney general James E. Tierney. "We wanted to give his courageous act voice at a time when the country needs to hear that there are courageous voices."
