Dobson's World: That old time religion

This is what the Republican nativists would like to take us back to, the Christian Right version of the good ole days: Family seeking Kennard pardon: Governor would make final decision if Parole Board OKs request by Jerry Mitchell Jackson Clarion Ledger 04/13/06. The story is about Clyde Kennard, an African-American Army veteran who tried to enroll in the all-white University of Southern Mississippi. Here's how the segregationist authorities honored veterans, supported families and practiced their white people's version of Christianity back then:

Kennard was attending the University of Chicago in 1955 when he had to return to Mississippi to help his mother with the family farm near Hattiesburg after his stepfather became disabled.

Lacking one year to graduate, he approached officials to attend Southern, only to be turned down.

Minutes after he tried again to enroll in fall 1959, two constables arrested him on charges of reckless driving and illegal possession of whiskey for which he was convicted.

In 1991, The Clarion-Ledger published secret documents from the state's now-defunct segregationist spy agency, the Sovereignty Commission, that showed how authorities framed Kennard on those charges.

Despite the conviction, Kennard persisted in his quest, and in 1960, one of the same constables who arrested him on the trumped-up charges arrested him for burglary.

In the trial, 19-year-old Johnny Lee Roberts testified Kennard, a 33-year-old farmer, put him up to breaking into Forrest County Co-op to steal $25 in feed.

Now, 45 years later, Roberts said Kennard, who died of colon cancer in 1963, "wasn't guilty of nothing."

Roberts since has sworn under oath Kennard was innocent.

Kennard's family is pushing for a pardon for the wrongly-convicted man, who passed away in 1963.

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