The Alabama Press Association (APA) Board of Directors voted Tuesday to censure Goodloe Sutton and suspend the association membership of The Democrat-Reporter. Sutton wrote an editorial last week calling for the Klan to ride again to rid the nation’s capital of socialism. The APA members have a right under the bylaws to address the question of expulsion of the newspaper at their next membership meeting.
 Goodloe Sutton, the editor and publisher of the Democrat-Reporter in Linden, Ala., wrote the editorial titled “Klan needs to ride again” that ran in the paper last week.
        “Time for the Ku Klux Klan to night ride again,” read the Feb. 14 editorial. “Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats are plotting to raise taxes in Alabama. They do not understand how to eliminate expenses when money is needed in other areas. This socialist-communist idealogy [sic] sounds good to the ignorant, and uneducated, and the simple minded-people.”
        “Seems like the Klan would be welcome to raid the gated communities up there,” concluded Sutton. “They call them compounds now. Truly, they are the ruling class.”
        Linden, the county seat of Marengo County, is a town of about 2,100 in the western part of the state, near the Mississippi border. The newspaper, a weekly that has won awards for investigative journalism, had a reported circulation of 3,000 in 2015.
        Melissa Brown, a reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser, spoke to Sutton Monday to confirm he had written the editorial and to clarify his comments.
        “If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out D.C., we’d all been better off,” Sutton told the Advertiser. When asked what he meant by “clean out,” Sutton suggested lynching, saying, “We’ll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them.”
        When the Advertiser asked whether it was appropriate to call for the lynchings of Americans, Sutton was not swayed. “It’s not calling for the lynchings of Americans,” said Sutton, whose family has owned the newspaper since 1917. “These are socialist-communists we’re talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?”
        When asked if he recognized the Ku Klux Klan as a violent and racist organization, the Advertiser reported that Sutton compared it to the NAACP. “A violent organization? Well, they didn’t kill but a few people,” Sutton said. “The Klan wasn’t violent until they needed to be.”
        `Democratic Sen. Doug Jones and Rep. Teri Sewell, whose district includes Linden, called for Sutton to step down on Monday evening.
        “OMG! What rock did this guy crawl out from under?” wrote Jones on Twitter. “This editorial is absolutely disgusting & he should resign — NOW! I have seen what happens when we stand by while people — especially those with influence — publish racist, hateful views. Words matter. Actions matter. Resign now!”
        “For the millions of people of color who have been terrorized by white supremacy, this kind of ‘editorializing’ about lynching is not a joke — it is a threat,” wrote Sewell, who is African-American. “These comments are deeply offensive and inappropriate, especially in 2019. Mr. Sutton should apologize and resign.”
        Republican Richard Shelby, Alabama’s senior U.S. senator, urged Sutton to apologize and resign in a Tuesday-morning statement to Yahoo News.
        “The rhetoric displayed by the Democrat-Reporter is disturbing, disgusting and entirely unacceptable,” said Shelby through a spokesperson. “I urge the newspaper to issue an apology and the publisher to resign from his duties. We cannot tolerate this sort of repulsive speech, particularly from our fourth estate.”
        The Democrat-Reporter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the calls for a resignation. “This is not the first racist editorial coming from Goodloe Sutton and the Democrat Reporter. He railed against the Obama Administration on a weekly basis and he has written articles and editorials that were uncomplimentary toward local Black elected officials or many years,” said John Zippert, Editor and Co-Publisher of the Greene County Democrat 
        In December, the Senate passed its first-ever anti-lynching bill, making the act a federal crime. Estimates suggest that more than 4,000 Americans, most of them African-American, were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968.