A Republican member of the Mississippi House of Representatives has called for lynching anyone who removes a Confederate monument, including lawmakers in a neighboring state.
On Saturday, Karl Oliver described the “destruction” of Confederate monuments in Louisiana as “heinous and horrific” and compared leaders in that state to Nazis.
“They should be LYNCHED!” Oliver wrote in comments posted on his Facebook page:
The message drew “likes” from two of Oliver’s fellow Republican lawmakers, Rep. John Read and Rep. Doug McLeod, the Jackson Free Press reported.
Oliver’s post came a day after a statue of Robert E. Lee was removed in New Orleans; it was the city’s fourth Confederate memorial to be dismantled in recent days.
Although no state Republican leaders have condemned Oliver’s comments, Democrats in the state blasted Oliver’s call for the violent murder of people he disagrees with, Mississippi Today reported.
“I am offended and outraged that a public official in 2017 would, with an obvious conviction and clear conscience, call for and promote one of the most cruel, vicious and wicked acts in American history,” Mississippi State Sen. Derrick Simmons, a Democrat, told The Root.
Rep. Sonya Williams-Barnes, a Democratic member of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus, decried Oliver’s “shameful, but seemingly extremely comfortable, choice of words.” In an email to Jackson-based CBS station WJTV, Barnes said Oliver’s comments “were offensive to me as the act of lynching was commonly used and most targeted toward African-American men, women and children in the south and especially in our state.”
She also commended Louisiana for removing a number of Confederate memorials and urged her state to do the same.
Oliver made headlines earlier this year for dismissing the concerns of a resident because she wasn’t born there, and urged her to leave Mississippi. Oliver, who describes himself as a Christian and has referred to Jesus Christ as the “Prince of Peace,” was elected to a four-year term in 2015 with nearly 57 percent of the vote in his district, according to Ballotpedia.
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