Sunday, July 26, 2015 1:16:17 AM
Black South Carolina Trooper Explains Why He Embraced a White Supremacist
Leroy Smith, director of the South Carolina Department of Public Safety, at his headquarters. At a rally on the State House grounds soon after a Confederate flag was removed, Mr. Smith helped an ailing man who wore a T-shirt bearing a swastika.
Credit Travis Dove for The New York Times
This photograph of Mr. Smith aiding the protester on July 18 has been seen around the world since it was posted on Twitter.
Credit Rob Godfrey, via Associated Press
By Dan Barry
JULY 25, 2015
COLUMBIA, S.C. — What the black state trooper saw was a civilian in distress. Yes, this was a white man, attending a white supremacist rally in front of the South Carolina State House. And yes, he was wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with a swastika.
But the trooper concentrated only on this: an older civilian, spent on the granite steps. Overcome, it appeared, by an unforgiving July sun and the recent, permanent removal of a Confederate flag from state capitol display.
The trooper motioned for help from the Columbia fire chief, who is also black. Then, with a firm grip, he began walking the wilted white man up the steps toward the air-conditioned oasis of the State House. As they climbed, another state employee snapped a photograph to post on Twitter [
The meaning of this image — of a black officer helping a white supremacist, both in uniform — depends on the beholder. You might see a refreshing coda to the Confederate flag controversy; a typical day for a law-enforcement professional; a simplification of racial tensions that continue. But what does the trooper see?
His name is Leroy Smith, and he happens to be the director of the South Carolina Department of Public Safety. He was at the rally [ http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/07/18/us/ap-us-confederate-flag-rallies.html ], working crowd control, because he likes to signal to his 1,300 subordinates that he has their backs.
Mr. Smith said he was taken aback by the worldwide attention but hoped the image would help society move past the recent spasms of hate and violence, including last month’s massacre of nine black people in a church in Charleston. Asked why he thinks the photo has had such resonance, he gave a simple answer: Love.
“I think that’s the greatest thing in the world — love,” said the burly, soft-spoken trooper, who is just shy of 50. “And that’s why so many people were moved by it.”
Earlier this month, Mr. Smith donned a dark business suit to join Gov. Nikki R. Haley and thousands of others in witnessing an honor guard of seven of his troopers march stone-faced toward a flagpole on the State House grounds. There, a few feet from a soaring Confederate monument, the white-gloved troopers lowered the Confederate flag [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/us/confederate-flag-live-video.html ] in 30 seconds and presented it to an official from a state-supported museum.
Just like that, a red, blue and white battle flag — representing Southern white pride to some, Southern black oppression to others — was removed from the whims of the South Carolina breeze.
A different sort of photograph had helped to end the flag’s official stature. After images surfaced of the suspect in the Charleston shootings, a white man named Dylann Roof, posing with the Confederate flag
[ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/dylann-storm-roof-photos-website-charleston-church-shooting.html ] — and after families of the victims publicly forgave him [ http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/06/19/us/19reuters-usa-shooting-south-carolina.html ] — Governor Haley said: Enough. Legislation [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/us/confederate-flag-south-carolina.html ] was swiftly drafted, a law was signed, and this flag of pride was demoted to relic.
As Mr. Smith watched the flag rolled up and history unfold, he felt chills running along his spine. “Very moving,” he nearly whispered.
Now, on a hot Saturday afternoon eight days after that emotional ceremony, Mr. Smith was back at the capitol, only this time in his gray uniform and broad-brimmed campaign hat. A group called the Black Educators for Justice would be rallying in the early afternoon on the north side of the State House. And on the south side, a couple of hours later, the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan would be demonstrating.
It promised to be a busy day.
Mr. Smith watched from the north side’s top granite step as black demonstrators vented their frustrations. Then he walked through the blessed cool of the State House to the south side, which faces the back of a statue of Strom Thurmond, the longtime senator and segregationist.
Bike-rack barricades had been arrayed to separate the white-supremacist demonstrators from a swelling crowd of people, some fresh from the black-empowerment rally on the north side. “You could kind of feel the tension in the air,” Mr. Smith recalled.
Soon the demonstrators, a few dozen, came marching from the west, flanked by Mr. Smith’s “advance civil emergency response team.” Many wore the black shirts of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi organization that, according to its website [ http://www.nsm88.org/ ], believes: “Only those of pure White blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. Noncitizens may live in America only as guests and must be subject to laws for aliens. Accordingly, no Jew or homosexual may be a member of the nation.”
These people entered their State House pen and waved their Confederate flags. The public-address system they were said to have ordered never arrived, so all they could do was exchange taunts with hecklers and issue occasional bleats of “White power!” and “Wooo!”
The heat turned up a notch: a bottle thrown, some jostling at the barricades. Mr. Smith called his commanders down to a lower level because, he said, “we were getting ready to work a little.”
Then a demonstrator directed his attention to an older man all but melting on a bottom step. “He looked fatigued, lethargic — weak,” Mr. Smith said. “I knew there was something very wrong with him.”
He called up the steps to the Columbia fire chief, Aubrey Jenkins, for assistance. Then, with his left arm around the man’s back and his right hand on the man’s right arm, he walked the swastika-adorned demonstrator up the steps, as many as 40. Slowly, steadily, all the while giving encouragement:
We’re going to make it. Just keep on going.
A female demonstrator shadowed the climb. On the back of her black shirt appeared a familiar white-supremacist slogan (“Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the earth”). She kept asking Mr. Smith whether the man was going to be all right — as if his safety, as well as his health, might be in some jeopardy.
Up the steps the two men went. They didn’t talk much, although the older demonstrator allowed that he wasn’t from around here. A spokesman for the National Socialist Movement declined to identify him, other than to say he is a senior citizen who doesn’t need people knocking at his door.
Mr. Smith isn’t from around here, either. Born in Haines City, Fla., the fifth and last child of transplants from Alabama. Mom worked at home while Dad worked in the citrus groves. Went to an all-black elementary school and then to an integrated high school, where those with Confederate flags on their pickups never bothered him.
Four years in the Navy. Then, after a brief spell in retail — “I sold cars, and I was pretty good at it” — a long career with the Florida Highway Patrol, where he rose through the ranks. After that, his appointment in 2011 as the first African-American director of South Carolina’s Department of Public Safety.
At this moment, though, Leroy Smith was a state trooper, helping a civilian suffering from the heat of the day.
As they approached the top step, someone nudged Rob Godfrey, 34, a deputy chief of staff to Governor Haley, who is known for his diligent chronicling of everyday history. He snapped a shot with his iPhone, sensing a distillation of the grace with which South Carolina has responded to these days of tragedy and strife.
“In that moment, Leroy Smith was the embodiment of all that,” Mr. Godfrey said. He quickly shared the moment with the world — to the benefit, it must be said, of his boss, Governor Haley, as she tries to lead her state beyond its racially troubled past.
Mr. Smith did not know about the photograph. He knew only what was before him. He walked the man into the air-conditioned State House, led him to a green-upholstered couch, and left him there to cool down.
© 2015 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/us/black-south-carolina-trooper-explains-why-he-embraced-a-white-supremacist.html
---
(linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=115622106 and preceding (and any futurte following)
Leroy Smith, director of the South Carolina Department of Public Safety, at his headquarters. At a rally on the State House grounds soon after a Confederate flag was removed, Mr. Smith helped an ailing man who wore a T-shirt bearing a swastika.
Credit Travis Dove for The New York Times
This photograph of Mr. Smith aiding the protester on July 18 has been seen around the world since it was posted on Twitter.
Credit Rob Godfrey, via Associated Press
By Dan Barry
JULY 25, 2015
COLUMBIA, S.C. — What the black state trooper saw was a civilian in distress. Yes, this was a white man, attending a white supremacist rally in front of the South Carolina State House. And yes, he was wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with a swastika.
But the trooper concentrated only on this: an older civilian, spent on the granite steps. Overcome, it appeared, by an unforgiving July sun and the recent, permanent removal of a Confederate flag from state capitol display.
The trooper motioned for help from the Columbia fire chief, who is also black. Then, with a firm grip, he began walking the wilted white man up the steps toward the air-conditioned oasis of the State House. As they climbed, another state employee snapped a photograph to post on Twitter [
], where it continues to be shared around the world.S.C. DPS chief says popularity of picture of him with white supremacist "surprised" him. http://t.co/3f56fY5ZqD pic.twitter.com/fRg5QsYTQp
— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) July 20, 2015
The meaning of this image — of a black officer helping a white supremacist, both in uniform — depends on the beholder. You might see a refreshing coda to the Confederate flag controversy; a typical day for a law-enforcement professional; a simplification of racial tensions that continue. But what does the trooper see?
His name is Leroy Smith, and he happens to be the director of the South Carolina Department of Public Safety. He was at the rally [ http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/07/18/us/ap-us-confederate-flag-rallies.html ], working crowd control, because he likes to signal to his 1,300 subordinates that he has their backs.
Mr. Smith said he was taken aback by the worldwide attention but hoped the image would help society move past the recent spasms of hate and violence, including last month’s massacre of nine black people in a church in Charleston. Asked why he thinks the photo has had such resonance, he gave a simple answer: Love.
“I think that’s the greatest thing in the world — love,” said the burly, soft-spoken trooper, who is just shy of 50. “And that’s why so many people were moved by it.”
Earlier this month, Mr. Smith donned a dark business suit to join Gov. Nikki R. Haley and thousands of others in witnessing an honor guard of seven of his troopers march stone-faced toward a flagpole on the State House grounds. There, a few feet from a soaring Confederate monument, the white-gloved troopers lowered the Confederate flag [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/us/confederate-flag-live-video.html ] in 30 seconds and presented it to an official from a state-supported museum.
Just like that, a red, blue and white battle flag — representing Southern white pride to some, Southern black oppression to others — was removed from the whims of the South Carolina breeze.
A different sort of photograph had helped to end the flag’s official stature. After images surfaced of the suspect in the Charleston shootings, a white man named Dylann Roof, posing with the Confederate flag
[ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/dylann-storm-roof-photos-website-charleston-church-shooting.html ] — and after families of the victims publicly forgave him [ http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/06/19/us/19reuters-usa-shooting-south-carolina.html ] — Governor Haley said: Enough. Legislation [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/us/confederate-flag-south-carolina.html ] was swiftly drafted, a law was signed, and this flag of pride was demoted to relic.
As Mr. Smith watched the flag rolled up and history unfold, he felt chills running along his spine. “Very moving,” he nearly whispered.
Now, on a hot Saturday afternoon eight days after that emotional ceremony, Mr. Smith was back at the capitol, only this time in his gray uniform and broad-brimmed campaign hat. A group called the Black Educators for Justice would be rallying in the early afternoon on the north side of the State House. And on the south side, a couple of hours later, the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan would be demonstrating.
It promised to be a busy day.
Mr. Smith watched from the north side’s top granite step as black demonstrators vented their frustrations. Then he walked through the blessed cool of the State House to the south side, which faces the back of a statue of Strom Thurmond, the longtime senator and segregationist.
Bike-rack barricades had been arrayed to separate the white-supremacist demonstrators from a swelling crowd of people, some fresh from the black-empowerment rally on the north side. “You could kind of feel the tension in the air,” Mr. Smith recalled.
Soon the demonstrators, a few dozen, came marching from the west, flanked by Mr. Smith’s “advance civil emergency response team.” Many wore the black shirts of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi organization that, according to its website [ http://www.nsm88.org/ ], believes: “Only those of pure White blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. Noncitizens may live in America only as guests and must be subject to laws for aliens. Accordingly, no Jew or homosexual may be a member of the nation.”
These people entered their State House pen and waved their Confederate flags. The public-address system they were said to have ordered never arrived, so all they could do was exchange taunts with hecklers and issue occasional bleats of “White power!” and “Wooo!”
The heat turned up a notch: a bottle thrown, some jostling at the barricades. Mr. Smith called his commanders down to a lower level because, he said, “we were getting ready to work a little.”
Then a demonstrator directed his attention to an older man all but melting on a bottom step. “He looked fatigued, lethargic — weak,” Mr. Smith said. “I knew there was something very wrong with him.”
He called up the steps to the Columbia fire chief, Aubrey Jenkins, for assistance. Then, with his left arm around the man’s back and his right hand on the man’s right arm, he walked the swastika-adorned demonstrator up the steps, as many as 40. Slowly, steadily, all the while giving encouragement:
We’re going to make it. Just keep on going.
A female demonstrator shadowed the climb. On the back of her black shirt appeared a familiar white-supremacist slogan (“Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the earth”). She kept asking Mr. Smith whether the man was going to be all right — as if his safety, as well as his health, might be in some jeopardy.
Up the steps the two men went. They didn’t talk much, although the older demonstrator allowed that he wasn’t from around here. A spokesman for the National Socialist Movement declined to identify him, other than to say he is a senior citizen who doesn’t need people knocking at his door.
Mr. Smith isn’t from around here, either. Born in Haines City, Fla., the fifth and last child of transplants from Alabama. Mom worked at home while Dad worked in the citrus groves. Went to an all-black elementary school and then to an integrated high school, where those with Confederate flags on their pickups never bothered him.
Four years in the Navy. Then, after a brief spell in retail — “I sold cars, and I was pretty good at it” — a long career with the Florida Highway Patrol, where he rose through the ranks. After that, his appointment in 2011 as the first African-American director of South Carolina’s Department of Public Safety.
At this moment, though, Leroy Smith was a state trooper, helping a civilian suffering from the heat of the day.
As they approached the top step, someone nudged Rob Godfrey, 34, a deputy chief of staff to Governor Haley, who is known for his diligent chronicling of everyday history. He snapped a shot with his iPhone, sensing a distillation of the grace with which South Carolina has responded to these days of tragedy and strife.
“In that moment, Leroy Smith was the embodiment of all that,” Mr. Godfrey said. He quickly shared the moment with the world — to the benefit, it must be said, of his boss, Governor Haley, as she tries to lead her state beyond its racially troubled past.
Mr. Smith did not know about the photograph. He knew only what was before him. He walked the man into the air-conditioned State House, led him to a green-upholstered couch, and left him there to cool down.
© 2015 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/us/black-south-carolina-trooper-explains-why-he-embraced-a-white-supremacist.html
---
(linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=115622106 and preceding (and any futurte following)
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