South Carolina's New Lieutenant Governor Has Awkward Confederate Past

When South Carolina Lt. Gov. Ken Ard resigned on Friday, the same day a grand jury indicted him for seven ethics violations, longtime state Sen. Glen McConnell agreed to fill the vacant post. The state's Republicans hoped he would bring a wealth of experience to the job, but didn't count on the 30-year veteran bringing his Confederate general's coat as well.

The appointment resurrected a controversy from 2010 in which McConnell, an avid Civil War re-enactor, was caught in an awkward picture at an event for the National Federation of Republican Women. McConnell, wearing a Confederate general's costume, was flanked by two black partygoers who appeared to be dressed as slaves. The event was called “A Southern Experience."

At the time, McConnell defended the pictures, telling the Charleston Post and Courier that the gathering was proof that segregation was firmly in the state's past. "Tell me what is offensive about having the differing parts of the culture there? What are we going to try and do in America, sanitize history?" he said. The woman in the picture, Sharon Murray, told the Post and Courier "she and her husband were neither portraying freedmen nor slaves."

McConnell has been a longtime advocate of Confederate history causes. He was a leading advocate for keeping the Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina statehouse, a battle he eventually lost. Paul Wachter also reported in 2010 that "McConnell owns a store that sells Confederate memorabilia. Last time I saw him, his cell phone bore a Confederate flag, and its ring tone chimed Dixie."

The South Carolina Democratic Party quickly turned McConnell's Confederate hobby into a new ad. Displaying pictures of McConnell in Confederate uniforms to the tune of "Dixie," the video slammed him him as a "kook" and sarcastically claimed, "we hope Nikki Haley stays healthy."

"The Republican Party has lost its collective mind and we ain't just whistlin' Dixie," the party said in a press release.

However, McConnell's stint in his new post may not last long. The Charleston Post and Courier reported on Monday that McConnell, the president pro tempore of the South Carolina Senate, has not committed to the full 2 1/2 years remaining in Ard's term.

Watch the full ad below:

Comments

[Joe Dombrowski]

05:52 PM on 03/17/2012

Aw shucks, aint nothin but a little ole timey fun. McConnell can go play in the woods with Rich Iott (the repub nazi re-enactor). Hope Nikki stays healthy, now that is funny.

[Carl W Roden]

03:58 PM on 03/15/2012

The SC Democrat Party officials sarcastically claimed, "we hope Nikki Haley stays healthy."

Remind me again who is supposedly waging a "War Against Women" in America?

[Joe Dombrowski]

05:47 PM on 03/17/2012

Your efforts to draw an analogy fail.

[Hoodooman]

03:11 PM on 03/14/2012

History isn't always pretty.

[LarryVitter]

11:54 AM on 03/14/2012

This is PC run amok. When did it become wrong to dress up like Civil War heroes and pretend?

BTW – You'll notice that the two Afro-Americans in the picture are happy and smiling.

[Joe Dombrowski]

05:48 PM on 03/17/2012

Yessir, they love that Mr. Glen, he be so nice and all.

[LarryVitter]

06:52 PM on 03/17/2012

Yes they do.

[Jarrett Edwards]

02:25 AM on 03/14/2012

I am in SC, and what this article fails to tell you is that the Democrats in our Senate is why he is Lt. Gov. Our constitution is clear, when the Lt. Gov’s office becomes vacant the President Pro Temp. of the Senate becomes Lt. Gov. It is well known he did not want to become Lt. Gov. in fact the thought sickened him. However the Dems, made it be known that if he resigned as President Pro Temp just long enough for another one to be elected and then elevated to the post, they would block his reelection to President Pro Temp. after that, and they have enough votes that if they can get 4 Repubs to go with them they win, and they let it be known they had the votes. So they left him with no choice, so really if you want to blame a party for this it’s the Drms.

[LarryVitter]

11:55 AM on 03/14/2012

Who are the "Drms"? Are they muslims?

[meritocracy]

03:09 PM on 03/14/2012

No, the Democrats in SC did not force him to take an obviously inappropriate photo. I would think a politician might think about the repercussions of such a picture. The article makes it clear that Mr. McConnell romanticizes an era when the force of the state was used to ensure that wealthy white people could own blacks as chattel. He clearly made his own bed.

[Joe Dombrowski]

05:53 PM on 03/17/2012

This would not play well in modern Charleston, or would it?

[Dr Scott]

12:13 AM on 03/14/2012

So let me get this straight. South Carolinians hate America so much that they pal around with people who glorify war with America and openly promote acts of treason? Shouldn't there be some kind of law against hating America IN America? At least the Germans have the decency to make it illegal to promote Nazism.

[debberae]

02:01 PM on 03/14/2012

So he participates in historical re-enactments. Where does it say he is promoting slavery? As for racism, the South hasn't cornered the market.

[cwipaulk]

05:33 PM on 03/15/2012

Nobody is "glorifying war with America", and the "acts of treason" were committed by Lincoln, not the South. Our rewritten history has brainwashed generations of Americans, of which you seem to be one. Even the "Official Records; War of the Rebellion" substantiates much of the South's account of the War for Southern Independence. Secession is not treason. If the states voluntarily joined the union, why can they not voluntarily remove themselves from that union? Lincoln even gave a speech, before he was president, about the states' rights to secede. The treason, sir, was on the part of the North, not the South. It was the North (Lincoln) who violated and trampled the Constitution, the South only wanted to return to a limited government, and not be gouged by the unfair tariffs from the Lincoln administration.
Read some true accounts of history by Al Benson, Jr, Thomas DeLorenzo, and the Kennedy brothers, Ronald and Donald.

[Dr Scott]

09:35 PM on 03/15/2012

LOL! Oh. Wait. Are you being sarcastic? I hope so.
While it's true that the southern states accused the federal government of trampling the Constitution, it had nothing to do with tariffs. It was 100% about slavery. I suggest you read the Declaration of Causes of the several states and take them at their word http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html.
Southern states felt that non-slave-holding states were interfering in their internal affairs by opposing slavery. The southern states were mad that non-slave-holding states were deliberately refusing to return runaway slaves in violation of Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution. And then there was the expansion of slavery into new states, or the lack thereof. Slave-holding states were afraid of losing influence in Congress if new slave-holding states weren't added at the same rate as non-slave-holding states.
The principle institution on which states like South Carolina were built is SLAVERY. If they're still mad that the United States outlawed slavery, I invite southerners to go ahead and try to sell their citizens on a return to slavery. I doubt they'll get many takers. For my part, I would love to see SC secede from the United States again. I'm sure they'd enjoy life as a third-world hell-hole. SC would be an even worse place than it already is if it weren't for states like New York propping it up.

[June25]

11:35 PM on 03/13/2012

And in what way would dressing up the black couple as plantation owners improve historical accuracy.

[LarryVitter]

11:56 AM on 03/14/2012

Oh so you're one of libs who favors "reparations", eh?

[JLau]

11:22 PM on 03/13/2012

Although there are many disturbing bits of information in this story, the photo is not that big a deal. Civil War reenactments occur all over this country (I went to one in Washington state a few years ago). Someone has to be the Confederates. This was an actual piece of American history, and one that should not be forgotten.

[dumocraps]

11:44 AM on 03/14/2012

Agreed

[ladameennoir]

11:15 PM on 03/13/2012

There are Japanese who don't think they were wrong in 1941. There are Germans who don't think WW2 was their fault. You can defeat a nation, but you can't force people to think that their ancestors were villains.

[cwipaulk]

05:57 PM on 03/15/2012

The "villains" invaded the South, plundered it, waged total war on civilians, subjugated the South and enforced military rule on it by dividing it into five sections and putting in military governors. Reconstruction was actually DEstruction. The South wanted only to be left alone, and 2/3 of the North said to let the South go. But Lincoln could not bear to lose the huge tariffs that had been unfairly imposed on the South, which accounted for 75% to 85% of the federal revenue. Read some true accounts of history instead of the rewritten version, which actually started during "reconstruction". What is taught in school is quite far from the truth.

[rollo tomasi]

10:52 PM on 03/13/2012

I just want to know...Who the F are the two bk guys in the picture???!!!

[debberae]

02:15 PM on 03/14/2012

One is a woman. They were representing the Gullah/Geechee culture of the state. Many Gullahs fought for the Union forces. It would seem that both the black and white races have a desire to preserve their history.

[rollo tomasi]

04:22 PM on 03/14/2012

As a person from the area, I know about the culture. Why would any black person want to dress us as a slave for ANY reason? I don't see any Jews dressing up as prisoners to teach about WW2.

[movingman64]

10:51 PM on 03/13/2012

people who live in the south are obsessed with the civil war, I am from the south and its a part of my past, but there is much more to our past than1861-1865...

[TheHelp]

10:20 PM on 03/13/2012

I look at this photo. I relaize that it was taken only a few years back...And I'm really not sure who I should be more ashamed of, the white guy who is a state leader now -- or the black couple who did this willingly.

[kevhar12]

11:32 PM on 03/13/2012

Both.

[sebackpacker]

10:22 AM on 03/14/2012

Be ashamed of the fact that you don't want to acknowledge our history. It is what it is, right or wrong.

[Ivar]

10:17 PM on 03/13/2012

Texas,sanitizes history

[TheHelp]

10:15 PM on 03/13/2012

And this is surprising -- why??? It's south carolina....they all ride the short bus down there

[Merchant of Meh]

10:15 PM on 03/13/2012

Guy honestly is an idiot.

If those two folks were dressed up as slaves and/or freedman then why exactly were they dressed like that?

He's not fooling anyone. Those are slave getups.