Republican Georgia state Rep. Tommy Benton was demoted Friday after maligning late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis less than a month since the Democrat’s death.
Mr. Benton was stripped of his position as chairman of the Georgia state House of Representatives Retirement Committee over remarks he made about Lewis in an interview Thursday.
“His only claim to fame was he got conked on the head at the Pettus bridge. And he has milked that for 50 years, or he milked it for 50 years,” Mr. Benton said about Lewis.
Mr. Benton also said he disagreed with efforts to replace a statue of Confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens currently inside the U.S. Capitol with one depicting Lewis.
Stephens is perhaps best known for delivering in March 1861 the so-called Cornerstone Speech in which he defended the newly established Confederate States of America, saying “its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”
“I would suggest that before they do something like that, that they take a pilgrimage down to Crawfordville and visit the Alexander Stephens museum, and read all the stuff that he did do,” Mr. Benton said during the interview on WJJC radio.
Georgia state House Speaker David Ralston called his remarks “offensive and disgusting” in a statement announcing his decision to relieve the fellow Republican as committee chair.
“These comments do not reflect the values or the views of the House Majority Caucus. I can neither condone nor ignore such hurtful remarks,” Mr. Ralston said in a statement.
“Lewis spent a lifetime of public service advancing equality for all. He stood with Dr. King to fight for civil rights during dangerous times for which he paid a brutal price,” Mr. Ralston added.
Mr. Benton, 70, has served in the Georgia state legislature since 2005. A message inquiring about his reaction the demotion was not immediately answered over the weekend.
A retired history teacher, Mr. Benton previously came under fire after in 2016 after saying the Ku Klux Klan “made a lot of people straighten up.” He was later stripped of his chairmanship from a different committee in 2017 after he sent colleagues an article entitled “The Absurdity of Slavery as the Cause of the War Between the States.”
Lewis, who died July 17, was among protesters assaulted on Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama, during a 1965 march regarded among the most pivotal events of the civil rights movement.
He was later elected in 1986 to represent Georgia’s 5th congressional district and remained in office until his death last month from pancreatic cancer at the age of 80.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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