Leftists are already celebrating, in their usual no-class fashion; at the Village Voice, the headline reads Jesse Helms Finally Dies: If We're Lucky, He Took Some Of His Bitter Bigotry With Him.
I only have a few memories of Sen. Helms. When I was in the US Navy, I was stationed with a man named Glenn Helms who claimed Sen. Helms was his uncle. I discovered this one night in November of 1982, when I found Glenn watching election returns. "What are you watching that crap for, Glen?" I asked. He answered, "I'm watching to see if Uncle Jesse wins reelection." Seeing my puzzled face, he added, "Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina is my uncle."
Another memory is during Sen. Helms's bitter Senate campaign against former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt, an African-American. I read the Charlotte Observer daily back then, and noted that the race was free of racial issues until Mayor Gantt made a pointed racial remark in an interview; a few days later the infamous "hands" TV commercial was released to universal media outrage. Senator Helms waw accused of "injecting" race into the senate race. I wrote a letter to the Charlotte Observer mentioning Gantt's interview, which had preceded the ad, and said that fairness required that they acknowledge that Mayor Gantt "injected" race first. The editors published the letter, and later that same morning Senator Helms called me at home to thank me for writing the letter.
*laughs*
Senator Helms was 100 years past his time. Had he been a senator in the 1890's instead of the 1990's no one would have remarked on his attitudes toward race or homosexuality; he would have been very much in the mainstream of political thought. He was elected and faced re-election in a rural state that was extremely conservative and didn't yet have the influx of Yankees from New Jersey and other northeast states that have moved North Carolina politics more toward the center of the political spectrum.
Died on Independence Day. Well, no one was more independent than Jesse Helms. If there's an afterlife Senator Helms may have cause to worry, or not, depending on the wishes of those who loved and hated him, and the nature of such a place.
Rest In Peace, Senator. You were honest and principled in a place that isn't noted for it.
Here's a screenshot of the Village Voice article referenced above, just in case it disappears down the memory hole:
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