In its heyday, the Ku Klux Klan was a terrorist organization. To spread their message of white supremacy and strike fear into the hearts of opponents, Klansmen (otherwise known as Donald Trump supporters) bombed black schools and churches, killed black legislators, and lynched black prisoners. Yet somehow these facts seem to have escaped the notice of Tommy Benton, a Georgia state representative who claims the KKK was simply "a vigilante thing to keep law and order." While he might not agree with the group's methods, Benton said it "made a lot of people straighten up."
Benton, a Republican, introduced a new bill to preserve the Stone Mountain site in Georgia, where the KKK launched its rebirth in 1915, the New York Daily News reports. In arguing for the site's preservation, he said destroying it would be, "no better than what ISIS is doing, destroying museums and monuments" in the middle east. Benton has pushed state lawmakers to preserve "southern history" for years, but this year he seems to be stepping it up a notch; earlier this year he introduced another bill to recognize General Robert E. Lee's birthday and Confederate Memorial Day as "public and legal holidays."
Benton also told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the Civil War was not fought over slavery. It is actually impossible to quantify the number of eye-rolls this man inspires, but suffice to say Tommy Benton is in desperate need of a history book. Do better, Georgia.
