The publisher of a small-town newspaper in Linden, Alabama, doubled down on Monday when pressed by the Montgomery Advertiser about a frightening editorial that appeared in his paper last week. The editorial called for the Ku Klux Klan to "night ride again" and "raid the gated communities" in Washington, D.C., in response to politicians "plotting to raise taxes."
Goodloe Sutton first confirmed to the Advertiser that he was indeed the author of the no-byline piece and then reiterated his stance on the matter, going so far as to suggest lynching "socialist-communists" in both the Democratic and Republican parties. "We'll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them," he said. He also defended the KKK, saying "they didn't kill but a few people."
Sutton's editorial actually ran on Feb. 14, but the Democrat-Reporter does not have a website, which likely allowed it to go unnoticed for the first few days. But two watchful student journalists from Auburn University, Mikayla Burns and Chip Brownlee, spotted Sutton's words in the physical paper and began to circulate the photos via Twitter, reports the Advertiser.
The Democrat-Reporter back at it again with things you’d never thought you’d see published anymore. pic.twitter.com/i5b7gKD1SC
— Mikayla Burns (@mikaylasburns) February 18, 2019
Brownlee than scoured through older editions of the Democrat-Reporter. His findings, published by the Alabama Political Reporter, showed that last week's was far from the first time that Sutton had published content like this.
Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) called for Sutton's immediate resignation and deemed the editorial "disgusting."
In 1998, Sutton, who has been at the Democrat-Reporter since 1964 (his family purchased the newspaper in 1917), was commended by the likes of The New York Times and a member of Congress for his paper's reporting, which helped bring down a corrupt local sheriff.
