LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The head of the Arkansas Republican Party on Monday called on a county party chairman to stop being the Arkansas point of contact for a group that bills itself as "pro-white," saying those principles run contrary to the GOP's. Chairman Doyle Webb said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that John Casteel should sever his ties with the Council of Conservative Citizens, which grew out of organizations that battled school integration in the 1950s and 1960s. Casteel did not respond to several voice mails and e-mail messages left for him at his insurance business Monday.
Casteel's e-mail was listed as the contact for both the Republican Party in Jackson County and for the Arkansas branch of the St. Louis-based group. After The Associated Press contacted the Council of Conservative Citizens to ask about Casteel on Monday, the group took Casteel's e-mail address off its website.
Clippings kept by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a Montgomery, Ala.-based organization that tracks hate groups, include a council newsletter showing Casteel at a Conservative Citizens board meeting in 2007. His insurance agency advertised in the same newsletter earlier in the decade. The phone number on the advertisement is the same as that at Casteel's business.
"Board meetings are not something that just the rank and file get to go to," said Heidi Beirich, a research director at the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Center said the Council of Conservative Citizens developed from the old White Citizens Councils from a half-century ago.
The Council of Conservative Citizens declined to confirm whether Casteel was a member of the group.
"It's like asking people what church they go to," said Gordon Lee Baum, the CEO of the conservative group. "It's nobody's . . . business."
"We're not white supremacists, but we are pro-white," Baum said.
On its website, the organization rails against immigration from non-Western countries.
"We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called 'affirmative action' and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races," the site says.
Webb said it appeared the Council of Conservative Citizens has values contrary to the Republican Party and said Casteel must make a choice.
"Under Republican Party rules, I do not have the authority to remove a county chairman," Webb said. "I personally would not be a member of such an organization, and would ask Chairman Casteel to immediately resign his membership from the Council of Conservative Citizens, because it appears its purposes are counter to the principles and beliefs of the Republican Party.
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Poster Comment:
If anybody had any lingering questions about the role of man-in-the-street white people in the GOP as anything other than money-donors....