Association tied to hate groups features former leader in video

Lott has a history of comments praising Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederacy.
By JIM GERAGHTY
STATES NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON -- A recruitment video for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a controversial heritage association whose members have been connected to hate groups, features footage of former Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The footage of Lott, who resigned his leadership post Friday, features his appearance at the opening of Jefferson Davis' ancestral home in 1998.
The senator was one of hundreds gathered for the opening of Beauvoir, Davis' 13,500-square-foot home and presidential library. Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice also attended, and some of the guests came dressed as Confederate officers.
"One of their recruitment videos begins with Trent Lott walking up the steps of Bouviour, with the sound of 'Dixie' playing in the background," said Heidi Beirich, a SPLC spokeswoman.
Allegations of racism
The Sons of Confederate Veterans, a hereditary organization founded in 1896 for male descendants of Confederate soldiers, has faced allegations of racism throughout its history.
Those charges grew earlier this year when Kirk Lyons, a North Carolina lawyer with alleged ties to white supremacist groups, was a candidate in an election for one of the group's regional leadership posts.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, the group made a decade-long push to rid itself of open racism and bigotry.
"On the other side, you have people who do historical activity who are not bad people," Beirich said. "But then you have the side that wants to use the group to send out an explicit message that things would be better if we could go back to 1865."
Long association
Lott has a long history of connections to the Sons of Confederate Veterans and comments about Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederacy.
As a Mississippi congressman in 1978, Lott led an effort to get Davis' U.S. citizenship restored. A fellow Southerner, then-President Jimmy Carter, signed the bill into law.
A year later, Lott was awarded the Jefferson Davis Medal from the United Daughters of the Confederacy for his successful efforts.
In 1984, Lott told a Sons of Confederate Veterans gathering in Biloxi, Miss., that "The spirit of Jefferson Davis lives in the 1984 Republican platform."
Later, in an interview in Southern Partisan magazine, Lott elaborated on his point about the Confederate president.
"I think that a lot of the fundamental principles that Jefferson Davis believed in are very important to people across the country, and they apply to the Republican Party," Lott told the magazine.
"For us to continue to be wedded to [the Democratic Party] because of events that took place after the War between the States, the War of Aggression, and because our fathers and grandfathers were identified with that party, is a terrible mistake."
In 1995, Lott and Thad Cochran, Mississippi's other Republican senator, introduced a resolution that permanently assigned Davis' desk to the senior senator from Mississippi, a position currently held by Cochran. If Cochran retires before Lott, the desk will be assigned to Lott.
Wall of Fame
Today, Lott's Senate Web site features a list of the "Mississippi Wall of Fame." On the list, above NFL quarterback Brett Farve and author William Faulkner, is Jefferson Davis.
"Some southern politicians, like Trent Lott, keep one foot in that community of the Confederacy," said Douglas Brinkley, a historian at the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans.
"They have always been there for him, and he can count on them for money. He knows they will stand there through thick and thin for him. These pro-Confederate groups have become very organized as a political lobbying group."
Lott's office did not return calls to comment.