Lindsey Graham autobiography sheds light on record on race

Lindsey Graham at a press conference in Washington in 2022. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Lindsey Graham at a press conference in Washington in 2022. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Lindsey Graham autobiography sheds light on record on race Memoir details upbringing of late senator – who denied existence of systemic racism – in segregated south A little-known autobiography from Lindsey Graham published in 2015 sheds light on his complicated record of acknowledging and addressing racism in South Carolina . Graham, born in 1955, came of age in a small textile town in the segregated south, located in Pickens county, the site of the last documented lynching in South Carolina in 1947. My Story, which came across as political spin to anyone who knew the background of Graham’s unlikely rise to political prominence , is a window into the conservative white man’s view of the south’s enduring racial tensions. Lindsey Graham says Black people can ‘go anywhere’ in South Carolina if conservative Read more By Graham’s account, he was the one who convinced his reluctant parents, Millie and Florence James, “FJ”, to finally open their popular Sanitary cafe to Black people – until then they only served Black neighbors through a take-out window. His high school, like others in the state, had been forced to admit a handful of Black students by a supreme court decision. His parents died 15 months apart while he was in college, and he took custody of his teenage sister, Darline, to whom he remained close. (Donald Trump on Monday recommended that Darline Graham Nordone be appointed as interim senator, “a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly”. Later on Monday Henry McMaster, South Carolina’s governor, appointed her to serve the rest of Graham’s term.) The racial climate remained tense as Graham, then the city attorney in Central, a city of about 3,000 people, entered politics in 1994 as a congressional candidate in the third district. To win, he relied on an endorsement from Strom Thurmond, a leading segregationist who ran for president in 1948 as a Dixiecrat on the States Rights Democratic party ticket. Graham took over Thurmond’s Senate seat in 2003, absorbing some of the late senator’s longtime staff and trying to match Thurmond’s record of constituent service. Throughout his long career in public office, Graham faced questions from Black voters about his commitment to racial justice. In 2020, Graham faced negative headlines when he ran against Jaime Harrison , the national Democratic party chair and a former aide to congressman James Clyburn, both of whom are Black. On the campaign trail, Graham denied that the nation was plagued by systemic racism, especially in his home state. He said that minorities, including immigrants, could “go anywhere” in South Carolina, but they “just need to be conservative”. At one point, he invoked the election of Barack Obama as proof that systemic racism did not exist. Graham conti