Lynne Cheney Visits Country Club With Racist Reputation

Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress at 1:00 PM on November 6, 2007.

This post, written by Matt Corley, originally appeared on Think Progress

Last Friday, around the time her husband was giving a speech in Dallas, Lynne Cheney "made a visit to the Dallas Country Club for a signing event to promote her new memoir, Blue Skies, No Fences." The club, which was founded in 1896, is a "haven for whites" and bills itself as a "traditional," "family oriented social club."

It also didn't have any African-American members until at least as recently as June 2007.

In February 2007, controversy erupted in the Dallas Mayoral race after it was reported that two of the candidates were members of the club, which at the time had no black members and was in the process of rejecting former Clinton administration USEC board member Kneeland Youngblood:

The criticism came after The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday that the membership application of prominent businessman Kneeland Youngblood, who stands to become the first black member of the club, had stalled. Members who declined to be identified said the reason for the delay was his involvement with the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

The Dallas Morning News reported in June that Youngblood's application was still "held up."

An employee of the country club confirmed to ThinkProgress that Youngblood is not a member, but said the club had accepted its first African-American member, a man named Ray Robinson, at some point between June 2007 and today.

Cheney's appearance at the traditionally exclusive club came in the same week that her husband visited a hunting lodge in upstate New York that hangs the Confederate flag.

UPDATE: A video look inside the Dallas Country Club, courtesy of TP reader Michael.

Tagged as: race, racism, cheney, country club, dallas

Matt Corley is a Research Associate for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.