The St. Augustine Record's website issued promotional hype yesterday, calling former St. Augustine Mayor Joseph Shelley "beloved."
Yes, as a baby doctor.
But not as a mayor.
He was a segregationist who went on national television spewing hatred and issued threats in writing to the parents of protestors, promising lifetime blacklisting. This is Black History Month.
Rather than atone for its one segregationist record, The Record has doubled down on it.
Shameful.
The Record ran PR advances for KKK rallies. The Record published the names and addresses of elementary school children desegregating local schoolss, resulting in firings, firebombings and blacklisting and beatings. The Record's then-owner, Mr. Hoppy Tibault, was only too happy to be a force for evil in our town.
Shameful.
Unlike Marilyn Thompson and the Lexington, Kentucky Herald-Leader, the Record has never apologized or atoned for its 1960s coverups of civil rights atrocities.
Shameful.
The Record might have run a nice feature on Mayor Shelley's widow without putting a halo on Mayor Shelley himself. The promo for today's story by outgoing features editor Ann Heyman was unnecessary hagiography for a segregationist.
Shameful.
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