ATLANTA (AP) - A Georgia lawmaker who was criticized for saying that the Ku Klux Klan was not racist has withdrawn bills he proposed to honor the Confederacy.
Rep. Tommy Benton, R-Jefferson, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that the KKK wasn’t racist but was “a vigilante thing to keep law and order.”
House and Senate members disavowed Benton’s comments in recent days, and the newspaper (https://on-ajc.com/1SyTVGd ) reported Monday that Benton withdrew his name as a sponsor from several measures, including a bill recognizing Confederate Memorial Day and Robert E. Lee’s birthday as state holidays.
“It was not my intention to create a situation whereby my comments would create a negative perception,” Benton said in a written statement on Monday. “Therefore, today I am withdrawing my sponsorship of HB 854, HB 855 and HR 1179 to allow the business of the House to move forward in an orderly manner.”
Benton also withdrew a constitutional amendment to protect Stone Mountain as a Confederate memorial and his proposal to restore street names that once honored veterans but have been altered since 1968. That would include a portion of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Atlanta once named for Confederate Gen. John B. Gordon, an early leader of the KKK in Georgia.
House media staff said other lawmakers also plan to withdraw sponsorship, effectively killing the bills.
“I condemn commentary that would seek to reverse the progress that we have made in the last century and a half,” House Speaker David Ralston, a Republican, said in a statement. “While we are mindful of our history, the business of the General Assembly isn’t in rewriting or reinterpreting the past, but rather to focus on improving Georgia’s future. I appreciate Chairman Benton’s withdrawal of his sponsorship of the legislation.”
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