100 People Who Are REALLY Screwing Up America -- #2 Maurice Bessinger

[Chichiri]

In the 1950s and '60s, Maurice Bessinger was the head honcho of the National Assocation for the Preservation of White People. He was a strong and vocal opponent of desegregation, spoke out loudly against racial mixing, and refused to let blacks into the main dining room of his restaurant. He complains today that people have been treating him unfairly for his racist views. "What the blacks didn't realize," he said in an interview, "was that they got the best food, because their dining room was in the kitchen."

How have the years treated Bessinger? Has he changed his ways since the bad old days? The answer is, not really. He's a bit older, a bit more religious, quite a bit more wealthy. He owns a chain of restaurants, Maurice's Piggy Park, that has come to define barbeque in South Carolina -- and outside his restaurants you will invariably find the Confederate flag, proudly waving in the wind.

If you aren't already repulsed enough to turn back and find an Arby's, and actually set foot inside the restaurant, you will find a variety of religious tracts for sale. One of them, entitled "Biblical View of Slavery," argues that slavery is not evil because it is permitted in the Bible. The tract states, in part, "Don't let anyone try to load you with guilt and say you need to make reparations for what your forefathers did. No! What our forefathers did was not evil in and of itself." It also argues that African slaves actually felt happy and blessed to be slaves, and they were sad when slavery was abolished, because they were happy to be beaten and spat upon and removed from their families, etc.

According to Bessinger, Abe Lincoln was an evil man who issued "illegal" executive orders.

Nevertheless, his barbeque continues to sell very well indeed -- and with every purchase of a bottle of his mustard-based sauce, Bessinger peddles his racist, neo-con wares. The scope of his audience would make many media moguls blush, andthe message is straight out of the Dark Ages.

If you want to hear Bessinger's side of the story, incidentally, stop into his restaurant, or go to his website and click on "Truth Store" to buy a copy of his book, "Defending My Heritage." Just don't read it while eating his world-famous BBQ, unless you have an incredibly strong stomach.