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28 Feb 2011 21:58

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Politics: Haley Barbour remembered stuff that actually didn’t happen

  • memory Attempting to burnish his non-racist credentials, Haley Barbour recalled a 1962 Martin Luther King speech in his hometown of Yazoo. “He spoke out at the old fairground and it was full of people, black and white,” he said in December.
  • reality A heartening tale, but according to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Garrow, there’s no record of it actually happening. MLK only came to Yazoo once, in 1966, and didn’t hold a rally when he was there. Whoops!
  • candid According to Barbour’s comments, he “paid more attention to the girls than to [Martin Luther] King.” We don’t doubt that, if the speech had happened, this would have been the case, so at least he isn’t being 100% disingenuous. source