Lester was a racist buffoon, but remember Atlanta also had seriously evil and dangerous racists like J. B. Stoner, who ran for governor as the White People’s Party candidate and defended King’s assassin. Hard to laugh at such hatred, but drag queens suckcede on their 70s TV show.

Atlanta Journal 4/6/67 Lester’s Vigilantes GOV. LESTER Maddox has announced the formation of a Committee of One Thousand, made up of people all over the state. Its object is to tell him what is going on. Through history more innocent people have ” been hung, burned, pressed to death, stoned, exiled, stretched on racks and calumnied by this means than by any other. The spirit of the committee is the spirit of the old Klan. In the good old days here in Georgia people were lynched, tarred and feathered, fired from their jobs and driven from the county by means of just this sort of friendly information. The idea is as old as injustice. as built-in as human spite, and has been the favorite device of dictators in all times and places. THE IDEA is mistake and ought to be dropped before the reputation of the first innocent citizen has been damaged. But to give the governor credit, there is a shadow of justification for this committee. He says its object is to keep a watchful eye on the functions of  state government. A watchful eye indeed is needed. The law is supposed to provide it. Is the governor’s suggestion a measure of the failure of our legal syslem? If so the remedy is reform of the system, and not vigilantes. And what about the independent watchdog agency, proposed in and so handily defeated by Gov. Maddox’s Senate?