Black Ink
Cover Story
Gantt, Helms Making Racial Appeals To Gain
By Andrew Alexander
Staff
North Carolina voters have an
opportunity to make history on
November 6 as Democrat Harvey Gantt
tries to defeat Republican Jesse Helms
who is seeking re-election to his fourth
term in the U.S. Senate.
“It’s going to be a special day for us
in history, but it’s going to take you,”
Gantt told a rally of 400 supporters in
Lumberton recently. “Send somebody
(to Washington) who really wants to
work with the people of the state.”
Gantt, the former mayor of Charlotte,
is locked in a closed battle against
Helms, political observers say, although
Gantt has forged an eight-point lead in
recent polls and despite beginning the
race with lack of a statewide organization
and campaign funds.
Helms, a leader of the national
conservative movement, is considered
to be the favorite in the race which
experts say is the hottest political contest
in the country this year.
“If I don’t win this election, there are
far worse things than being defeated for
re-election to the U.S. Senate,” Helms
said in The NewsandObserveroi^\e\^.
“Selling your soul to stay there is one of
them. ”
When the campaign started after the
May primaries and June runoff elections,
both Gantt and Helms said that their
race would emphasize issues and not
focus on the fact that Gantt is black and
seeking to become the North Carolina’s
first black senator.
But as election day nears, both
campaigns are making racial appeals to
gain votes. Gantt, the first black student
at Clemson University, has regularly
visited black churches and universities
since he became the Democratic
nominee.
Gantt, who describes himself as a
liberal, has also run political ads on
black-oriented radio stations in many
cities in the state. The ads urge voters to
support Gantt on November 6 to send
Helms home to North Carolina.
Helms’ campaign aides criticized
Gantt for running these ads, saying that
Gantt was targeting black citizens to
keep his re-election hopes alive. Gantt’s
camp maintained that Helms has used
race-baiting tactics throughout his entire
political career and that Gantt’s ads
never mention race.
In fact. Helms has made race a
central issue in the Senate campaign.
On October 17, Helms accused Gantt of
waging “a racial campaign,” and said he
was proud to be a redneck.
In an interview with The News and
Obseruer 'm his Washington office. Helms
defended his campaign of fund-raising
letters that criticize black politicians,
including Gantt. Saying that his critics
include national Democratic Party Chair
man Ronald H. Brown, who is black,
Helms said, “Am I not supposed to
identify, by name, who’s saying what?"
He also said, “Mr. Gantt is making a
racial campaign out of this, if you will
pardon me. He’s going around telling
blacks, ‘This is our chance, you’ve got to
vote.’"
Helms charged that the North Caro
lina press does not see Gantt’s state
ments “as having racial overtones... The
media has got blinders on.” But Helms
said he might get the most black votes of
his political career because many blacks
oppose Gantt’s support of abortion.
“There are black ministers who
are concerned about the thing," he
said. Helms also mentioned that some
had visited his Washington office.
Helms defended a speech he gave
in the Senate in which he praised the
comments of an artist from Texas,
saying that she was “not some igno
rant redneck from North Carolina.”
“I wrote that myself,” Helms told
the News and Observer. “I am con
stantly referred to by the artists and
others as a redneck. That’s fine. They’re
the salt of the earth. I’m proud to be
called that.”
A week later, some of North Caro
lina’s best-known historians signed a
fund-raising letter for Gantt. They said
Helms “helped orchestrate the cam
paign in 1950 that defeated Sen. Frank
Porter Graham by associating him
with communism and race-mixing,”
The Charlotte Observer reported on
October 24.
“Helms has been practicing the
same brand of politics ever since," the
letter says, “opposing every civil rights
measure that has come before Con
gress, seeking to impose censorship
on those who receive federal grants in
the arts, opposing all abortions, even
for victims of rape and incest, and
voting against WIC, the nutrition pro
gram that has had startling success in
improving the life chances of poor
babies."
They describe Gantt’s past as “an
other kind of history” that includes de-
segragating Clemson University and
serving as Chadotte’s mayor during its
emergence as “a leading and enlight
ened metropolis."
Helms’ spokeswoman Beth Burrus
said it was untrue that Helms helped
orchestrate a race-baiting campaign for
Willis Smith who defeated Graham.
“Helms was not in that campaign—
other than for supporting Smith.” she
said.
Duke University’sjohn Hope Franklin
and UNC Professor William Leuchtenburg
were among the l6 historians who signed
the letter titled “Historians for Gantt.”
The Daily Tar Heel described how
history repeated itself in North Carolina
politics in its September 10,1984 edition
when racism and mudslinging were
injected into the legendary race between
Graham and Smith during the special
election in 1950. Racism and gutter politics
were also evident in the Senate contest
between former Gov. Jim Hunt and
Helms in 1984.
Smith’s campaign workers, one of
whom was Helms, wrote and distributed
racist campaign literature on the eve of
the June Democratic runoff primary. In
his book, “Frank Porter Graham , a
Southern Liberal,” Warren Ashby de
scribed the attack on Graham, a former
UNC president.
“White people, wake up before it is
too late. You may not have another
chance. Do you want Negroes working
beside you, your wife and your daughters
in your mills and factories? Negroes
sleeping in the same hotels and rooming
houses? Negroes using your toilet
facilities? Frank Graham favors mingling
of the faces?”
That was the message the Smith
campaign cried after the first primary
when Graham defeated former Senator
Robert Reynolds. Graham prevailed
despite charges that he belonged to the
Communist Party probably because he
was a member of the Civil Rights Com
mittee in the Senate.
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