I understand what you say, but I am unable to find linkable sources that were something other than opinion pieces that didn’t quote their sources.
In Helms’ mind, the civil rights movement was inexorably linked with Communism. He filibustered the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday bill calling King a Marxist.
Right. But that doesn’t make him a segregationist. Ross Barnett was a segregationist. George Wallace was a segregationist. Neither made any secret of it. If the only evidence that Helms was a segregationist is that he was a racist…sorry, but that’s not enough.
I’d say that his intimate involvement in Willis Smith’s campaign, and that “White People WAKE UP” flyer, is a pretty good indication that Helms supported segregation.
Helms was a member of the Dixiecrat party in 1948, right?
They were expressly segregationists.
Indeed. If you’re working on someone’s campaign after a flyer like that comes out and doesn’t get repudiated by your candidate, you get tarred with that brush.
From a bio of Jesse Helms: After Smith’s death in 1953, Helms returned to Raleigh and became executive director of the North Carolina Bankers Association. There, he used the association’s trade magazine, the Tarheel Banker, as an outlet for sharply written editorials on such issues as free enterprise, school desegregation, and community mores. Now it’s possible that those sharply written editorials favored school desegregation. But I doubt it. I conclude that Helms was a segregationist. Viewpoint | NCpedia
Regarding the OP, this biography of Jesse Helms contains no entry for “John Wayne” in the index. Less interestingly, this bio of John Wayne contains an index entry for Goldwater, but not Jesse Helms.
This 2005 Jesse Helms autobiography contains a mention of John Wayne, but no discussion of the referenced anecdote. I find that telling. Here's where I Stand: A Memoir - Jesse Helms - Google Books
I vote, “Urban myth”. There’s a certain lack of verifiable fact in the anecdote.
Conflating the Civil Rights movement with Communism was a well-worn segregationist talking point; Helms himself used it in filibustering the MLK holiday.
I believe you’re conflating him with Strom Thurmond. Helms’ biography has no mention of any dalliance with the States’ Rights Democratic Party.
Well, someone might be, but I’m not. I recall when checking into conservatives’ misrepresentations of the Dixiecrats long term party membership seeing Helms’ inclusion. For instance:
http://minorityrepublican.com/2012/11/27/where-did-the-dixiecrats-go/
I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge if these sorts of sources are wrong.
It is. But what I questioned was drawing that conclusion purely from the use of the phrase “University of Negroes and Communists”, which BrainGlutton implied could be done.
Alright, I can see the logic there.
There are other conceivable reasons to oppose establishing yet another federal holiday, but “King was a Communist!” is an argument only a segregationist would ever think of using.