Type | Weekly newspaper |
---|---|
Owner(s) | Tommy Wells |
Founded | 1911 |
City | Linden, Alabama, U.S. |
OCLC number | 11800888 |
The Democrat-Reporter is a local weekly newspaper in Linden, Alabama, United States. It was established in 1911 from the merger of the Linden Reporter and the Marengo Democrat. The newspaper was published by the Sutton family for over a century, with Goodloe Sutton running it from 1985 to 2019. The newspaper won national acclaim in the 1990s for its investigation of a corrupt county sheriff, but was met with criticism in early 2019 over an editorial from Sutton calling for the return of the Ku Klux Klan.
Sutton resigned as publisher and editor on February 22, 2019, and appointed Elecia R. Dexter to the two roles while he retained ownership. Dexter resigned less than a month later, citing ongoing interference from Sutton, and a deal to sell the paper to an out-of-state couple fell through a month later. The newspaper was sold to Tommy Wells in July 2019, as Sutton announced his retirement.
The Linden Reporter was created in 1879 and the Marengo Democrat was founded in 1899. The two newspapers merged to form The Democrat-Reporter in 1911. [1] Robert E. Sutton bought the newspaper in 1917 and was its managing editor and publisher until 1965. He sold The Democrat-Reporter to his son Goodloe in 1982. [2] [3] [4] Goodloe Sutton also worked alongside his wife, Jean, until her death in 2003. [5]
The newspaper won national acclaim in the 1990s for its investigation of county sheriff Roger Davis for political corruption, despite his widespread popularity and death threats to editor Goodloe Sutton and his family. [6] Davis and two deputies from the office were sentenced for misuse of public funds and other crimes, including intimidation tactics used against the Suttons. [4] [7] The four-year investigative series was considered a favorite for a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1998, though the newspaper was not a finalist. [8] The Suttons were interviewed by The New York Times , the American Journalism Review , Reader's Digest , and the Oprah Winfrey Show. [9] [10] Goodloe Sutton was also honored by Representative Earl F. Hilliard in a remark to Congress on May 6, 1998, for his bravery. [11] Goodloe Sutton ran unsuccessfully for the state house in 1998, losing to incumbent Andrew Hayden despite an ethics controversy. [12] [13]
The Democrat-Reporter had a longstanding rivalry with the Demopolis Times , which is published in neighboring Demopolis. [14] The Democrat-Reporter absorbed the Thomasville News (of Thomasville) in 2006, after a decade under the ownership of the Sutton family. [15] The newspaper's circulation dropped from 7,000 to 3,000 by the mid-2010s, and printing was outsourced to a plant in Monroeville. The offices for The Democrat-Reporter were moved in 2015 to a new building farther away from the county courthouse. [3] [16] The newspaper is published weekly on Thursdays and generally contains eight pages, including local news, legal notices, and an editorial page. [17]
On February 14, 2019, The Democrat-Reporter publisher Goodloe Sutton wrote an editorial titled "Klan needs to ride again", calling for the return of the Ku Klux Klan to "clean out Washington D.C." with lynchings. [9] [18] "We'll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them", Sutton said. He also specified that he was only referring to hanging "socialist-communists", and compared the Klan to the NAACP. [19]
The editorial led to calls on Sutton to resign by senators Doug Jones and Richard Shelby, while other local politicians stated that they were not surprised by the comments. [20] [21] The editorial was first discovered and shared by the student-run Auburn Plainsman . [22]
Sutton had previously been criticized for running offensive headlines and editorials, including comments about the Obama family and Hillary Clinton, but they did not get as much attention. [3] [11] Subscriptions to the newspaper declined as Linden residents responded negatively to the editorial and its widespread attention. [17] Sutton's alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi, removed him from the School of Communication's Mass Communication Hall of Fame over the editorial, [23] and he was also stripped of a distinguished community journalism award he had been presented in 2009 by Auburn University's Journalism Advisory Council. [19] Sutton responded to the criticism by saying that he was not sorry that he wrote the editorial, and that he would do it again if he had the chance. [24]
On February 22, Sutton announced that he would resign from his positions as publisher and editor, giving control of the newspaper to Elecia R. Dexter. [25] Dexter, an African-American woman with a degree in speech communications from Eastern Illinois University, [26] had been employed at The Democrat-Reporter as a front-desk employee for six weeks at the time of the editorial, but had no journalism experience. [27] Sutton retained ownership of the newspaper. [28] [29] [30] Dexter resigned the editorship on March 11, two weeks after taking the position, due to editorial changes made by Sutton without her permission. [27] In an interview with The New York Times , Dexter said that Sutton had emailed a version of the February 28 issue of the newspaper that replaced an article about his retirement with a defense of the KKK editorial and attacks against the Montgomery Advertiser for publishing an interview with him. [27] [31] She stated that her resignation was made after further changes to the March 14 issue, but was delayed over concerns for Sutton's cognitive well-being. [31]
The Associated Press reported in late March that Sutton had sold the newspaper to an unnamed buyer, who were later identified as out-of-state residents C.T. Harless and Sabrina McMahan in a front-page editorial on March 28. [32] [33] Online news outlet Alabama Political Reporter published an investigation into Harless, who was using a pseudonym, and linked him to a group aligned with the Ku Klux Klan from Tennessee. [34] [35] Linden mayor Charles Moore expressed skepticism over whether the newspaper had actually been sold, while Sutton stated that he would continue operating the newspaper because the new owners lacked experience. [36] In July, the Associated Press reported that Sutton had retired and sold the newspaper to Tommy Wells, a sports publicist from Texas who had previously shown interest in acquiring the Democrat-Reporter. Wells and his wife published their first edition on July 5, 2019, with the announcement of Sutton's retirement. [37] Sutton died four years later at the age of 84 on Sept. 22, 2023. [38]
The Ku Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan is the name of several historical and current American white supremacist, far-right terrorist organizations and hate groups. The Klan was "the first organized terror movement in American history." Their primary targets are African Americans, Hispanics, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, and Catholics, as well as immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Muslims, atheists, and abortion providers.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white supremacist groups, for its classification of hate groups and other extremist organizations, and for promoting tolerance education programs. The SPLC was founded by Morris Dees, Joseph J. Levin Jr., and Julian Bond in 1971 as a civil rights law firm in Montgomery.
John Tyler Morgan was an American politician was served as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War and later was elected for six terms as the U.S. Senator (1877–1907) from the state of Alabama. A prominent slaveholder before the Civil War, he became the second Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama during the Reconstruction era. Morgan and fellow Klan member Edmund W. Pettus became the ringleaders of white supremacy in Alabama and did more than anyone else in the state to overthrow Reconstruction efforts in the wake of the Civil War. When President Ulysses S. Grant dispatched U.S. Attorney General Amos Akerman to prosecute the Klan under the Enforcement Acts, Morgan was arrested and jailed.
The Montgomery Advertiser is a daily newspaper and news website located in Montgomery, Alabama. It was founded in 1829.
This is a partial list of notable historical figures in U.S. national politics who were members of the Ku Klux Klan before taking office. Membership of the Klan is secret. Political opponents sometimes allege that a person was a member of the Klan, or was supported at the polls by Klan members.
Inez Jesse Baskin was an American journalist and civil rights supporter who covered the Civil Rights Movement and the Montgomery bus boycott for African American readers and publications.
The United Klans of America Inc. (UKA), based in Alabama, is a Ku Klux Klan organization active in the United States. Led by Robert Shelton, the UKA peaked in membership in the late 1960s and 1970s, and it was the most violent Klan organization of its time. Its headquarters was the Anglo-Saxon Club outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Robert Marvin Shelton was an American former car-tire salesman and printer who became nationally famous as the Imperial Wizard of United Klans of America (UKA), a Ku Klux Klan group.
Walter Horace Carter was an American newspaper publisher in Tabor City, North Carolina, whose paper won a 1953 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the activities of the Ku Klux Klan and his editorials which opposed them. Filmmaker Walt Campbell's documentary The Editor and the Dragon: Horace Carter Fights the Clan recounts Carter's account of his newspaper and his personal conflict with the local Klan.
The U.S. Post Office Building in Selma, Alabama, also known as the Federal Building or United States Courthouse.
Harold Wayne Greenhaw was an American writer and journalist. The author of 22 books who chronicled changes in the American South from the civil rights movement to the rise of a competitive Republican Party, he is known for his works on the Ku Klux Klan and the exposition of the My Lai Massacre of 1968. Greenhaw wrote for various Alabamian newspapers and magazines, worked as the state's tourism director, and was considered "a strong voice for his native state".
The Selma Times-Journal is a five-day-a-week newspaper located in Selma, Alabama. It publishes every day of the week except Sunday and Monday. The Saturday paper is called the "Weekend Edition." It is owned by Tuscaloosa, Alabama-based Boone Newspapers Inc.
Grover Cleveland Hall, Sr. was an American newspaper editor. At the Montgomery Advertiser in Montgomery, Alabama, he garnered national attention and won a Pulitzer Prize during the 1920s for his editorials that criticized the Ku Klux Klan.
Anthony Dickinson Sayre was an Alabama lawyer and politician who notably served as a state legislator in the Alabama House of Representatives (1890-1893), as the President of the Alabama State Senate (1896-97), and later as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama (1909-1931). He was influential in Alabama politics for nearly half-a-century.
The Tallassee Tribune is a weekly newspaper serving Tallassee, Alabama and surrounding Elmore County. It is currently owned by Tallapoosa Publishers Inc.
The Monroe Journal is a weekly newspaper from Monroeville, Alabama serving the city and surrounding area.
Howard Goodloe Sutton is an American newspaper editor, publisher, and owner. From 1964 to 2019, he published The Democrat-Reporter, a small weekly newspaper in Linden, Alabama. Sutton was widely celebrated in 1998 for publishing over four years a series of articles that exposed corruption in the Marengo County Sheriff's Office; he received awards and commendations and was suggested as a candidate for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2019, Sutton once again became the focus of national attention when he wrote and published an editorial suggesting the Ku Klux Klan be revived to "clean out" Washington, D.C. He already had a local reputation for other, similarly inflammatory racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and homophobic editorials.
Kathryn Madlyn Ainsworth was an American Ku Klux Klan terrorist. She was killed by law enforcement in 1968 during her failed assassination attempt on a prominent Jewish Mississippian.
Roy Elonzo Davis was an American preacher, white supremacist, and con artist who co-founded the second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915. Davis was Second Degree of the KKK under William J. Simmons and later became National Imperial Wizard (leader) of the Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He worked closely with Simmons, and was a co-author of the 1921 KKK constitution, bylaws and rituals. Davis spent decades as a KKK recruiter, at one point being named "Royal Ambassador" and an "Official Spokesperson" of the KKK by Simmons. Davis and Simmons were both expelled from the KKK in 1923 by Hiram Wesley Evans, who had ousted Simmons as leader. Simmons started the Knights of the Flaming Sword branch of the KKK and with Davis's help retained the loyalty of many KKK members. Davis was later reappointed second in command of the national KKK organization by Imperial Wizard Eldon Edwards, a position he held until being elected national leader by 1959.
Filmore Watt Daniels [sic] and Thomas F. Richards [sic] were lynched near Mer Rouge, Morehouse Parish, Louisiana by black robed Ku Klux Klan members on August 24, 1922. According to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary they were the 47th and 48th of 61 lynchings during 1922 in the United States. There were five lynchings in the state of Louisiana and of the 61 lynchings they were 2 of 6 white victims.