WATCH: Wesley Hunt flips script on Dems' 'Jim Crow 2.0' attacks amid heated SPLC racism hearing
A Black Republican congressman excoriated Democrats and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for allegedly perpetuating racist tropes he said had long faded while recounting how his father endured true...
By Fox News · Fox News
A Black Republican congressman excoriated Democrats and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for allegedly perpetuating racist tropes he said had long faded while recounting how his father endured true bigotry in ways far worse than what Americans experience today. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas , joined a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday examining the role the SPLC allegedly played in "distorting civil rights policy" by funneling money to racist and extremist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and whether that funding elevated extremist threats in America. Hunt began his remarks by noting the idea du jour in the "Democrat hive" is that "Jim Crow 2.0 is alive and well in America" as he sat beside a split image of a Black man standing near a "Colored" sign and a person handing over identification to poll workers. "I’m sure some of the SPLC’s actions have helped them make this argument," he said before turning to retired Vanderbilt law and political science professor Carol Swain — who is also Black — and asking her if she experienced any true "Jim Crow" treatment when she last voted in Tennessee . PATEL, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST RIP SPLC AFTER DOJ ALLEGES GROUP FUNDED THE 'VILLAINS' THEY CLAIMED TO FIGHT "Were you intimidated in any way with baseball bats, fire hoses or dogs?" Hunt asked, as Swain replied that the only nervousness she felt was when asking for a Republican ballot in a Democrat-heavy precinct. Hunt thanked Swain for her testimony and turned to the contrasting image beside him. "For all my Democrat colleagues everyone on the left screaming "Jim Crow 2.0" ad infinitum — Let's take a moment to revisit what actual Jim Crow was. Jim Crow was a time when Black Americans could not sit in classrooms with white Americans. It was colored-only water fountains; it was beatings in the streets; it was lynchings." Hunt said true Jim Crow was when his father had to go to the back door of restaurants growing up in New Orleans in order to get a sandwich because he cou…