Beth Rickey

Last updated
Beth Rickey
Louisiana Republican activist Beth Rickey.jpg
Born
Elizabeth Ann Rickey

(1956-06-11)June 11, 1956
DiedSeptember 12, 2009(2009-09-12) (aged 53)
Alma mater University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Tulane University
Occupation Political activist
Professor
Political party Republican
Spouse(s)Single
Parent(s)Horace B. Rickey and Flora Ann Womack Rickey
Notes
At the time of her death, Rickey was credited by many as the person in Louisiana most responsible for turning public opinion against the gubernatorial candidacy of the controversial David Duke. She gathered evidence of Duke's neo-Nazi connections.

Elizabeth Ann Rickey, known as Beth Rickey (June 11, 1956 September 12, 2009), was a Republican political activist from Louisiana who exposed the neo-Nazi connections [1] of former State Representative David Duke, who ran for the U.S. Senate and for governor of Louisiana in 1990 and 1991, respectively, under the GOP label though opposed by the party leadership.

Republican Party (United States) political party in the United States

The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States; the other is its historic rival, the Democratic Party.

Louisiana State of the United States of America

Louisiana is a state in the Deep South region of the South Central United States. It is the 31st most extensive and the 25th most populous of the 50 United States. Louisiana is bordered by the state of Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. A large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River. Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties. The state's capital is Baton Rouge, and its largest city is New Orleans.

Louisiana State Legislature

The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is a bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate with 39 senators. Members of both houses are elected from single-member constituencies.

Contents

Early years and family

Rickey was born in Lafayette to Horace B. Rickey, Jr. (1901–1967), a veteran of World War II, and the former Flora Ann Womack (1921–1998). Rickey, who was single, had a brother, Robert Harper Rickey and his wife, Karen Elizabeth Rickey, of Devon, England. [2]

Lafayette, Louisiana City in Louisiana, United States

Lafayette is a city in and the parish seat of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, located along the Vermilion River in the southwestern part of the state. The city of Lafayette is the fourth-largest in the state, with a population of 127,657 according to 2015 U.S. Census estimates. It is the principal city of the Lafayette, Louisiana Metropolitan Statistical Area, with a 2015 estimated population of 490,488. The larger trade area or Combined Statistical Area of Lafayette-Opelousas-Morgan City CSA was 627,146 in 2015. Its nickname is The Hub City.

World War II 1939–1945 global war

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

England Country in north-west Europe, part of the United Kingdom

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north-northwest. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

An uncle, Branch Rickey, was a Major League Baseball executive who in 1947 signed Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the first black player so designated. [3] [4]

Branch Rickey American baseball player and coach

Wesley Branch Rickey was an American baseball player and sports executive. He was perhaps best known for breaking Major League Baseball's color barriers by signing black player Jackie Robinson, as well as for creating the framework for the modern minor league farm system, for encouraging the Major Leagues to add new teams through his involvement in the proposed Continental League, and for introducing the batting helmet. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967, two years after his death.

Major League Baseball Professional baseball league

Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization, the oldest of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. A total of 30 teams play in the National League (NL) and American League (AL), with 15 teams in each league. The NL and AL were formed as separate legal entities in 1876 and 1901 respectively. After cooperating but remaining legally separate entities beginning in 1903, the leagues merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball in 2000. The organization also oversees Minor League Baseball, which comprises 256 teams affiliated with the Major League clubs. With the World Baseball Softball Confederation, MLB manages the international World Baseball Classic tournament.

Jackie Robinson American baseball player

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when the Brooklyn Dodgers started him at first base on April 15, 1947. When the Dodgers signed Robinson, they heralded the end of racial segregation in professional baseball that had relegated black players to the Negro leagues since the 1880s. Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.

Rickey's family was Republican. Horace Rickey was the early 1960s the secretary of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee [5] on which his daughter would later be a member. The Rickeys supported both Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 for President. She received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in government at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She taught government at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond until she entered Ph.D. studies at Tulane University. [6]

Barry Goldwater Republican nominee for President, 1964; U.S. Senator from Arizona

Barry Morris Goldwater was an American politician, businessman and author who was a five-term Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States in 1964. Despite his loss of the 1964 presidential election in a landslide, Goldwater is the politician most often credited with sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s.

Ronald Reagan 40th president of the United States

Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Prior to his presidency, he was a Hollywood actor and union leader before serving as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975.

President of the United States Head of state and of government of the United States

President of the United States (POTUS) is the title for the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

Targeting Duke

David Duke has not changed his views even though he says he has. ... There is a difference between being a conservative and being a racist. He's trying to blur that distinction. [7]

In 1988, Rickey received only 135 votes but won the House District 93 slot on the 144-member Louisiana Republican State Central Committee. [8] She was considered one of the more moderate members of the RSCC. Living in New Orleans, and attending Tulane, Rickey began to follow Duke in 1991 to various appearances across the state and nation, and discovered his continuing involvement with radical groups that he had supposedly repudiated. On more than one occasion, Duke met with Rickey to try to convince her that he was a mainstream conservative who could be trusted with political office. Duke called Rickey on the telephone, took her to lunch, and even introduced her to his two daughters." [1]

Telephone telecommunications device

A telephone, or phone, is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user.

Quin Hillyer of the Washington Times in Washington, D.C., a personal friend of Rickey's, said that her revelations did the most to stop the election of Duke as governor. With three weeks before the election, Duke was running in a dead heat in public opinion polls against the Democratic candidate, former Governor Edwin Washington Edwards. Hillyer said that "Duke had the momentum. What Duke could never escape, though, was all the evidence that he truly was a neo-Nazi, rather than what he claimed to be: a next-generation Reaganite conservative with a long-ago tawdry Ku Klux Klan past that he had thoroughly put behind him. Much of that evidence was unearthed by Beth Rickey." [1]

Rickey had supported David C. Treen for governor in 1972, when Treen was defeated by Edwards, and in 1979, when Treen was narrowly elected to the state's highest post over the Democrat Louis Lambert. She also campaigned for Treen's brother, John S. Treen, a businessman from Metairie, who lost the District 81 state representative special election runoff to Duke in 1989. Rickey even left her Tulane studies to work in the Treen campaign. The House seat opened when Republican Charles Cusimano of Jefferson Parish resigned to become a state court judge. [1]

Rickey followed Duke to a national gathering in Chicago, Illinois where she taped him making a racist remark. She released the tape and arranged for detectives to visit Duke's residence and legislative office where he was found selling Nazi books. As a Republican central committee member, she introduced a resolution to censure Duke, but the move was tabled because the committee has jurisdiction only over its own members, and Duke has never been a member of the state committee. The publicity generated by Rickey hurt Duke among Republican leaders and voters who questioned his Nazi ties. Signs appeared saying, "Vote for the Crook. It's Important", a reference to Edwards' ethical conduct. The campaign was also known as "the election from Hell." Rickey started getting death threats and hired security guards to watch her apartment. [3]

Duke tried to convince Rickey that he was a mainstream conservative in the post-Reagan era. As their communication developed, Rickey said that Duke told her that Jews were responsible for most of the nation's problems. [1]

Rickey, journalist Quin Hillyer, and eight other Duke critics formed a new organization to hound the candidate in the weeks left in the gubernatorial campaign. The Louisiana Coalition against Racism and Nazism included figures from both parties, Christian ministers, Jewish activists, and various liberal scholars. The coalition prevailed, as Edwards defeated Duke, 61.2 to 38.8 percent. Duke never recovered politically and was later incarcerated for tax and mail fraud. [1] Edwards himself was sent to federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, on a conviction of racketeering.

Treen endorses Edwards

David Treen, whose political career had been launched in part to defeat Edwin Edwards, in 1972 and 1983, wound up supporting Edwards in 1991 to block the potential election of Duke as a Republican governor. He also later tried to get the George W. Bush administration to commute Edwards' prison sentence.

Treen declared that Duke "simply is not believable. He is an opportunist who will say whatever is necessary to gain him votes. . . .To my Republican friends, therefore, I say do not be persuaded in favor of Duke simply because he has adopted the Republican label…. Duke affiliated with the Republican Party for one reason and one reason only: pure political opportunism. It is my judgment that David Duke must be defeated. He can't be defeated by voters staying at home out of disaffection for both candidates for governor.… There are but two names on the ballot: David Duke and Edwin Edwards. To defeat David Duke, one must vote for Edwin Edwards. That's what I will do." [9]

The GOP state convention in the spring of 1991 had endorsed neither Duke nor incumbent Democrat-turned-Republican Governor Buddy Roemer, but instead conservative U.S. Representative Clyde Holloway of Forest Hill in Rapides Parish. Holloway, later a member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission, finished far behind in the nonpartisan blanket primary. Duke then went into the general election with Edwards on November 16, 1991. Roemer finished a strong third but was eliminated in the primary.

Rickey said that "some members of the Republican Party are not sure what Duke's views are. My point is there is a difference between being a conservative and being a racist. He's trying to blur that distinction." [7]

Times-Picayune analysis

The Times-Picayune theorized that Louisiana voters might not have rejected Duke if Rickey had not made his exposure her life's crusade.

". . . Without Rickey, [voters] would never have known how big a fraud and unreconstructed Nazi [Duke] was. The media never had a more prolific and intrepid source [than Rickey]. If you weren't around here at the time, you could hardly credit what a threat Duke posed, although he was best known as a former Grand Wizard in the Klan who had at various times spoken warmly of Adolf Hitler. Duke's meteoric rise obviously signified that plenty of voters shared, or were at least prepared to overlook, his racist views. But he had been at great pains to create a more moderate persona, appearing in natty suits, and adopting the pose of a mainstream conservative politician who happened to have been a 'rascal"'in his long-ago youth. He was glib and, thanks to his plastic surgeon, quite photogenic.

"With an electorate in a fit over welfare cheats and high taxes, there was no need, at least in polite society, for an explicit, white supremacist spiel. Duke was adept at telling white voters what a lot of them wanted to hear, and that is always the best way to come across as smart and reasonable." [10]

Rickey's last years

In her later years, Rickey fell on hard times with declining health and financial woes. She took a church mission trip to Mexico in 1996 and returned with a mysterious virus which ruined her health. [1] Thereafter, she was diagnosed with Crohn's disease and hypertension. [11] She was a former Presbyterian who had converted to Roman Catholicism.[ citation needed ] Unable to find steady employment and with high-deductible health insurance coverage, she had practically exhausted her life savings before being found dead with a pitcher of iced tea in her hand at the Silver Saddle Motel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A friend had paid for a week of lodging for Rickey.

Ironically, a concerned social worker found a philanthropist willing to help, but the offer came too late. Rickey first went to Santa Fe to escape Hurricane Katrina (2005) but had been in the New Mexico capital for the last time just a few weeks prior to her death at age fifty-three. [3]

David Treen died in 2009 at the age of eighty-one, just six weeks after the passing of his longtime supporter Beth Rickey.

In 2000, along with another New Orleans Republican, Marilyn Thayer, Rickey was inducted into the Louisiana Center for Women in Government and Business Hall of Fame at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux in Lafourche Parish.

Related Research Articles

David Duke American White nationalist, white supremacist, writer, right-wing politician, and a former Republican Louisiana State Representative

David Ernest Duke is a prominent American racist, white supremacist, white nationalist politician, white separatist, antisemitic conspiracy theorist, Holocaust denier, convicted felon, and former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Edwin Edwards American politician, including Governor of Louisiana

Edwin Washington Edwards is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the U.S. Representative for Louisiana's 7th congressional district from 1965 to 1972 and as the 50th Governor of Louisiana for four terms, twice as many elected terms as any other Louisiana chief executive. He served a total of 16 years in office, the sixth-longest serving gubernatorial tenure in post-Constitutional U.S. history at 5,784 days.

Dave Treen American politician

David Conner Treen Sr., was an American attorney and politician from Mandeville, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana. In 1979 he was elected as the first Republican Governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana since Reconstruction. It was a sign of changing party affiliations among white conservatives in the state, who have comprised a majority of the population since at least 1900. In 1972 Treen was the first Republican elected in modern times from this state to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Paul Jude Hardy is an American attorney from Baton Rouge, in the U.S. state of Louisiana, who was the first Republican to have been elected lieutenant governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana since Reconstruction. He served in the second-ranking post under Governor Buddy Roemer from 1988 to 1992.

George Despot American businessman and Republican politician

George Joseph Despot was a businessman in his native Shreveport and a pioneer in the establishment of a competitive Republican Party in the U.S. state of Louisiana. He was the state Republican chairman from 1978 to 1985. His leadership began when the state party was so small that there was a standing joke that the Louisiana GOP could operate from a phone booth, few of which still exist, though the Republicans became the majority party in Louisiana by 2012.

1995 Louisiana gubernatorial election

The Louisiana gubernatorial election of 1995 was held on November 18, 1995 to elect the Governor of Louisiana.

1991 Louisiana gubernatorial election

The Louisiana gubernatorial election of 1991 resulted in the election of Edwin Edwards to his fourth non-consecutive term as governor of Louisiana. The election received national and international attention due to the unexpectedly strong showing of David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who had ties to other white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.

James Joseph Donelon, III, known as Jim Donelon, has been since February 15, 2006, the Republican insurance commissioner of the U.S. state of Louisiana.

James Harvey Brown, Jr. is an American political consultant and political commentator based in Baton Rouge and long active in Louisiana Democratic politics. In 1972, he was elected to both the Louisiana State Senate, to which he served two terms, and to the 1973 Constitutional Convention. He was Louisiana secretary of state from 1980 to 1988, and he ran unsuccessfully for governor in the 1987 nonpartisan blanket primary. He was elected insurance commissioner in 1991 and served until his resignation in October 2000. Brown's political career closed with a six-month prison sentence for lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the status of an insurance company.

1983 Louisiana gubernatorial election

The Louisiana gubernatorial election of 1983 resulted in the election of Edwin Edwards as Governor of Louisiana, defeating incumbent David Treen.

Louis Joseph Lambert Jr., is a Louisiana attorney, businessman, and politician. He served as a former member and chairman of the Louisiana Public Service Commission, and was elected to the Louisiana State Senate, serving one term 1972-1974, and again from 1994 to 2004.

Robert Louis "Bobby" Freeman Sr. was an American attorney in Plaquemine, Louisiana, who was the Democratic lieutenant governor of his state from 1980 to 1988. He was subsequently the Plaquemine city judge from 1990 to 1996. From 1968 to 1980, he had been a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives.

John Hamilton Cade Jr., was an American businessman from Alexandria, Louisiana, who was a pioneer in the development of the Republican Party in his state.

William Aicklen Nungesser, was a leader of the Republican Party in the formerly traditionally Democratic state of Louisiana during much of the latter 20th century.

Republican Party of Louisiana

The Republican Party of Louisiana is the U.S. state of Louisiana's organization of the national Republican Party. The state chairman is Louis Gurvich, a businessman from New Orleans, who was elected on February 24, 2018. Since the late 20th century, white conservatives in the states have mostly shifted to the Republican Party from the Democratic Party. As of 2016, every statewide elected official in Louisiana, with the exception of the governor, is a Republican.

Virginia Morse Martinez, usually known as Ginny Martinez, was a long-term Louisiana Republican Party official who is credited with having landed her party's 1988 national convention in her adopted home city of New Orleans, Louisiana. Delegates nominated the Bush-Quayle ticket. Martinez had been a notable supporter of Bush.

Roger F. Villere Jr. American businessman

Roger Francis Villere, Jr. is an American businessman from Metairie in Jefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans, who was the former chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party, a post he filled from March 2004 to February 2018 at the behest of the GOP State Central Committee. He was succeeded by New Orleans businessman Louis Gurvich in February 2018, when Villere did not seek reelection as the party chairman. At the time of his retirement, he was the longest serving state Republican Party chairman in the United States. He succeeded Pat Brister of St. Tammany Parish, the first woman to have been the state GOP chairman, who served from 2000 to 2004.

Charles Vincent Cusimano, II, known as Chuck Cusimano, is a Republican politician from Metairie in suburban Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.

John Speir Treen is a retired homebuilder from Metairie in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, who lost a 1989 special election for the Louisiana House of Representatives to the former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke. Treen is the older brother of David C. Treen, the first Republican governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction.

Robert Max Ross was a Republican activist and a candidate for numerous statewide and local offices who resided in Mangham in northeastern Louisiana. He was among the earliest advocates for the Republican political movement at a time when no GOP candidate had been elected statewide in more than a century. He ran as one of two candidates in the Republican primaries for governor in 1972 and Louisiana's 5th congressional district seat in 1974. After Louisiana adopted the jungle primary system, Ross qualified again for governor in 1983 and also the United States Senate in 1984. He additionally ran for the Louisiana State Senate as well as mayor of Mangham during other election years.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Quin Hillyer, "Beth, what can we do? Against David Duke, a tale of courage"". Washington Times , September 15, 2009. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
  2. "Social Security Death Index". search.ancestry.com. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
  3. 1 2 3 "Tom Sharpe, "Eizabeth Ann 'Beth' Rickey, 1956-2009: David Duke nemesis dies in Santa Fe Activist who helped scuttle neo-Nazi's political career had hoped to rebuild life here"". Santa Fe New Mexican , September 13, 2009. Archived from the original on January 4, 2013. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
  4. The author is unable to determine exactly how Beth Rickey is descended from Branch Rickey.
  5. "List of Officers, Republican State Central Committees, October 3, 1961" (PDF). nixonlibrary.gov. Retrieved September 2, 2013.
  6. Patricia Sullivan, "Beth Rickey dies with an immune disorder and Crohn's disease," Washington Post , September 16, 2009
  7. 1 2 "Duke denies he's maintaining ties to controversial neo-Nazis," Minden Press-Herald , June 8, 1989, p. 1
  8. Louisiana Secretary of State, Election returns, March 8, 1988
  9. "Quin Hillyer, "Dave Treen, Political Builder"". American Spectator , October 30, 2009. Archived from the original on January 10, 2010. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
  10. "James Gill, "Republican crusader Beth Rickey exposed the real David Duke"". New Orleans Times-Picayune , September 16, 2010. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
  11. "Elizabeth Rickey, GOP activist who denounced David Duke, dies at age 53". Nola. Retrieved 6 June 2018.