Interestingly, the Friends and Advocates of Neighborhood Schools slate from 1991 has an alumnus running for the 16th Ward Aldermanic seat as a Republican. Carol A. Wilson is running for the spot vacated by Jim Shrewsbury when he ascended to the President of the Board of Alderman.
I’ve been snoozing though. Carol Wilson is also a member of the St. Louis Board of Elections and appointed to it by the Bobster. So apparently white washing one’s background is a bipartisan affair here in Misery. Timothy J. Wilson, her husband is also a Circuit Court Judge in the City of Saint Louis.
Who cares? Well, the Friends and Advocates slate, despite sounding like a Quaker slate, was a slate backed by Thomas Bugel, former head of the Metro South Citizens’ Council, in 1991. The Metro South Citizens’ Council was the local variant of the Council of Conservative Citizens. She had nice things to say about her former slate members as well. From Jo Mannies March 17, 1991 column she said:
‘I’m proud of the people I’m running with.’
This must have included William J. Macke, cofounder of the Metro South Citizens’ Council. It is unclear to me that even Macke’s mother could be proud of him.
From January 20th:
Macke is one of the founders of the Metro South Citizens Council, a group that he describes as ”an interest group of white citizens.” But Macke denies that it is racist, saying the South Side group simply represents ”property owners who are conservative.”
White property owners that is.
From the March 17th article:
slate. The Kids slate demanding that the treasurer of the Friends slate resign because he had made a $250 campaign contribution to David Duke of Louisiana. Duke is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party who now is running for governor. He ran a highly publicized campaign for the U.S. Senate last year. The Kids slate also took aim at a $1,000 contribution that the Friends slate got from a segregationist. Kids candidate Stewart said the Duke link and the segregationist’s contribution demonstrated that the Friends slate was ”anti-black.”
Friends slate member Wilson and some of the board’s anti-busing members accusing the Kids slate of being racist against whites. They pointed to endorsements the Kids slate got from Comptroller Virvus Jones and state Rep. Paula Carter, D-St. Louis. The Friends slate says Jones and Carter are ”black racists.” Bugel alleges that Carter ran a racist primary campaign against Aldermanic President Thomas A. Villa, who is white. Bugel accusing Kids candidate Purdy of injecting ”gutter-level smear tactics into this campaign.”
Things not heard around here often, Bill Purdy had a hell of a backbone–too bad he couldn’t use it to reform the bureaucracy.
Apparently she and her husband are fans of city living from this letter to the editor:
Once again the Post-Dispatch has confused its mission with that of the National Enquirer. The yellow journalism evident in the lurid "the city’s sinking you better flee" front-page Sunday "news" story, accompanied by the article’s supposed search for who is responsible, would be comedic if it weren’t so tragic.
The Post-Dispatch used its journalistic freedom to construct a striking, large, front-page, color map, color photo story in its largest circulation day paper. You don’t have to be a genius to understand the impact of a photo of a row of for-sale signs, a map with a colorful metastasizing cancer and a headline incorporating scare words like "bode ill," and "slide." The position of the story, the graphics and the headline diction were inflammatory. We are not asking the Post-Dispatch to sugarcoat the urban realities with Pollyanna puff pieces. But no rational purpose is served with bylines by Chicken Little. Tim and Carol Wilson St. Louis
Admirably, Francis Slay backed the Kids Slate in the ’91 election even though his ward was considered a strong bastion of support for the Neigbhood slate. Will the supposedly liberal Post-Dispatch point out Wilson’s checkered past? Or is it to polite to talk about ties to racists if it isn’t Trent Lott?