Rep. Steve Scalise (R) of Louisiana got into the news recently after it came out that in 2002 he’d spoken at a meeting of “the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, which was founded two years earlier by David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader and Louisiana politician.
I looked up Scalise on Wikipedia and found this:
Scalise graduated from Archbishop Rummel High School in Metairie in Jefferson Parish and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, with a major in computer programming and a minor in political science.
The political science angle is interesting but what struck me was the Catholic high school. Back in the old days, the KKK was strongly anti-Catholic. But things have changed.
Also interesting is this, from the Wikipedia article on Archbishop Rummel himself:
Rummel is perhaps best remembered for his controversial decision to desegregate the Archdiocese, including the Catholic schools. . . . The city of New Orleans has always had a large population of black Catholics. . . . But the segregated parochial school system suffered from the same problems with underfunding and low standards as the segregated public school system. No archbishop attempted to desegregate the Archdiocese until the Civil Rights Movement began after the end of the Second World War.
Once the movement did begin, Rummel embraced the cause of racial equality. He admitted two black students to the Notre Dame Seminary in 1948. He ordered the removal of “white” and “colored” signs from churches in 1951. That year, he opened Saint Augustine High School, the first high school dedicated to the higher education of young black men in the history of the Archdiocese. And in 1953, he issued “Blessed Are the Peacemakers,” the pastoral letter that officially ordered the end to segregation in the entire Archdiocese . . .
When asked why he spoke at a white supremacist group, congressmember Scalise said:
I don’t support any of the things I have read about this group, but I spoke to a lot of groups during that period. I went all throughout south Louisiana. I spoke to the League of Women Voters, a pretty liberal group… I still went and spoke to them. I spoke to any group that called, and there were a lot of groups calling.
There’s some balance for you: the KKK on the right and the League of Women Voters on the left.
From a historical standpoint, what’s interesting to me is the evolution of KKK-affiliated hate groups and how they invited a speaker who is a self-described “devoted Catholic.” I guess they need to seek support wherever they can.