Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.
North Carolina Civil Servant Quits Rather Than Lower Flag for Jesse Helms
L.F. Eason, a 29-year veteran of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, “instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday” to honor the late senator Jesse Helms, “as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.” In a string of e-mail messages with his superiors, Eason was told he could either lower the flags or retire effective immediately. Here is Eason’s reasoning for his decision to retire:
This is in no way a political decision. I simply do not feel it is appropriate to honor a person whose epitaph of government service was to have voted against or blocked every civil rights issue that came before the US Congress. His doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice cost North Carolina and our Nation much that we may never regain.
[ED: Eason is on the left in the photograph, above.]
Tagged as: jesse helms, north carolina
| Also in Rights and Liberties | |||
| Continuous Police State: Hundreds of Demonstrators Detained at RNC Cops detained hundreds demonstrators on the final night of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Post by Lindsay Beyerstein. September 5, 2008. |
Media Silent, But Activist Groups Loud About RNC Police Brutality "I observed a lot of instigation and escalation of violence [on the part of the police]," Flemming said. Post by Lindsay Beyerstein. September 3, 2008. |
Riot Cops Gas Docile Crowd Outside the RNC It should be stressed that this wasn't a loud boisterous march like Monday's, but just a crowd of 100 people walking calmly down the street. Post by Lindsay Beyerstein. September 3, 2008. |
|