Texas: Perry gets praise for race speech. Former Texas governor and now presidential candidate Rick Perry was praised in the Wall Street Journal for his little-noticed July 2 speech to the National Press Club addressing racial issues. After recounting details of a vicious 1916 lynching of a black youth in Texas, Perry criticized Barry Goldwater’s vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and called for a government role in addressing the effects of segregation. He also noted that today the Democratic Party has a political monopoly over inner-city black neighborhoods, and concluded that it is “Republicans, not Democrats, who are truly offering black Americans the hope for a better life for themselves and their children.” ……. Virginia: More statues in Leesburg? Rather than call for the removal of a statue honoring Confederate soldiers, the local NAACP has called for the erection of additional memorials, commemorating the lives of slaves and Union soldiers. A local historian said the effort “is not about replacing something or taking something down,” but expanding the historical perspective ……. Race: NYU professor defends Dixie. Asserting that “the states of the old Confederacy have become a national scapegoat” for the racism behind the Charleston massacre, New York University historian Thomas J. Sugrue argued that racial segregation is more prevalent in the North than in the South. In an article in the Washington Post, Sugrue noted that eight of the top ten states in defacto segregation in schools are in the North, only two in the South (MS & TN). The most segregated was New York, where 65% of black students go to school with few or no white students …….
