Secret Service Investigates Obama Impeachment/Lynching Leaflet

[su_right_ad]With mere weeks to go in the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina between Sen. Kay Hagan (D) and Thom Tillis (R), things have gotten very ugly in Fayetteville, where cars at a predominantly black church were papered with leaflets featuring a photograph of a lynching, accompanied by a threat of impeachment against President Obama. The leaflet says, “Kay Hagan Doesn’t Win! Obama’s Impeachment Will Begin!”

Beneath that text, the flyer reads “Not endorsed by any candidate. Paid for by Concerned Citizens of Cumberland County.” The background photograph is from the 1920 lynching of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie in Duluth, Minnesota.

Fayetteville Observer reporter Paul Woolverton tweeted a photo of the flyer yesterday, along with what I thought was a pretty major assumption:

Pro-Hagan flyer has a picture of a lynching. Was put on cars parked at a Fayetteville church on Sunday #ncpol #ncsen pic.twitter.com/GYfXQoAit7

— Paul Woolverton (@FO_Woolverton) October 20, 2014

@FO_Woolverton How is that pro-@KayHagan? Looks more like a GOP campaign promise to me. http://t.co/c5Uexk7IR1 — Tommy Christopher (@tommyxtopher) October 20, 2014

At least one other reporter, from WRAL in Raleigh, agreed that the provenance of the flyer wasn’t really all that obvious. The thing looks as much like a racist iteration of actual GOP threats to impeach President Obama as anything else. Woolverton explained his assumption:

@tommyxtopher Flyer was distributed at black church, I think to tell black Obama supporters: “Keep Kay to protect Obama from impeachment”

— Paul Woolverton (@FO_Woolverton) October 20, 2014

Of course, the flyer is designed in such a way that if it were distributed on cars at a white church, it would definitely be seen as an appeal to racism, not an appeal to rescue Barack Obama, and at least one attendee of the church didn’t see it that way either…READ MORE

D.B. Hirsch

D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.