Nashville News Blog

House Speaker Kent Williams lives in Carter County, which is 97 percent white. He went to Memphis last weekend for the first time, and it was like some kind of Road-to-Damascus experience. After a tour of Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum, a stopover for runaway slaves, Williams was so moved he apologized for slavery and the oppression of blacks. During a speech at the Civil Rights Museum, "he issued a personal apology--not as the House speaker--for the transgressions against the black race, for not just slavery but for the oppression that followed. He got a standing ovation," Rep. G.A. Hardaway, a Democrat from Memphis, says in Rick Locker's story in the Commercial Appeal today.

Back in Nashville Monday, Williams listened as Rep. Steve McManus, R-Memphis, gave an 11-minute lecture against the federal stimulus package. From the podium, Williams responded:

"I was in Shelby County this weekend and I probably met with a different group than you met with. I met with a group that really wasn't concerned about IRAs because they didn't have any. They weren't concerned about retirement, because they didn't have any. They were concerned about getting food on their table and some of them, the elderly are worried if they are going to die if they don't have their medications. So there are two sides to this issue."

Pith in the Wind hereby demands mandatory tours of inner-city Memphis for every wingnut in America.