GOP candidate Everett Corley appeared in 2014 on a white nationalist's YouTube program.

On the show he railed against a conspiracy of liberals and minorities.

Corley blamed the conspiracy for stripping power from the "white working class."

"I am not a racist, and I could give you a string of reasons why I'm not," Corley says.

A Kentucky House candidate who wants to represent a majority African-American district said four years ago on a white nationalist's YouTube show that minorities have stripped the white working class of power.

Republican Everett Corley railed on number of racial grievances during the nearly hourlong interview in 2014 with avowed white nationalist William Johnson. He said that white voters in western Louisville's Portland neighborhood are "completely surrounded" because of a Democratic plot.

"It's a bunch of white liberals and minorities who've conspired together to cut the white working class out of power," he said.

Corley, who is running for the Kentucky House 43rd District, made the comments while appearing on "The Ethno State" with Johnson, a leader with the American Freedom Party. Johnson, a Los Angeles attorney, was in the national spotlight after briefly being listed as a delegate for then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016.

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The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, says the organization was founded in 2009 by California skinheads. It says the party "aims to deport immigrants and return the U.S. to white rule." Johnson, for instance, once proposed a Constitutional amendment that would strip citizenship from nonwhite residents.

"I am a white nationalist, I promote the interests of white Americans," Johnson, who endorsed Corley, said during the interview. "Of course I'm interested in helping all people, but I am unabashedly pro-white."

Corley told the Courier Journal on Thursday that he didn't know exactly what Johnson meant when he called himself a white nationalist.

"If I made any mistake it wasn't doing my homework," Corley said. "I engaged in some hyperbole, but that was all due to my anger over redistricting. If he said he was a racist, a neo-Nazi or a member of the Klan, I would have hung up."

Corley said he was contacted two months before the election by Johnson to be on the show after he voiced concerns on Facebook about crime and gerrymandering in Louisville. He said he didn't know anything about Johnson's political party.

"In 2014, no one knew about the alt-right," Corley said on Thursday. "I just thought he was trying to be edgy."

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Later in the program, however, Corley said how Johnson's party would appeal to whites in the same way that groups like a black lawyer's association does.

He talked with Johnson about a wide range of topics that mainly focused on how whites are being mistreated by minorities.

Among the other comments he made on the show were:

► On gerrymandering : "My district, for example, has houses that range from $200,000 to $400,000 houses and then they stretched it all the way into a crime zone in the western part of the city that has houses for $8,000 or $9,000 and where you can drive causally down the street and see people buying drugs."

► American Freedom Party “One thing that struck me about the American Freedom Party, if you’re a minority you can belong to all these groups that champion your ethno background but you certainly have very little to do as a European or a Caucasian America."

► School violence against whites : "Just put aside the curriculum altogether, it's far more tribal and dangerous than that. My friend has a girl in elementary school and the first fist fight she got in was with an African-American boy who attacked her. The fact of the matter is — and I was a victim many times over again in Jefferson County Public Schools of black-on-white bullying, and of course in California it's Hispanic-on-white bullying — it's just rampant in the public schools."

► Waterfront Park "race riots" in 2014 : "Of course it was about race, everybody who was attacked was white. Of course it was about race, only people involved in the attacks were black."

► Sen. Mitch McConnell's interracial marriage : After Johnson heavily criticized McConnell for being married to U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is Asian, Corley responded by saying their marriage wasn't about having children.

"I certainly feel that we should maintain our people and our culture as much as anyone else, and that's a post, and I’m not saying this in a bad way, but that’s a post, shall we say marriage that has not borne any children or anything. That’s simply a marriage of companionship, you understand what I’m saying? I don’t think he’s trying to make a statement about children on that marriage, I just simply think that that’s someone he relates to on an interpersonal relationship. But be that as it may, that primarily is not what I’m, his marriage is not my problem, you know what I’m saying?"

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Corley, who is a realtor, said Thursday that his comments on the program were no different from what some social scientists have said about U.S. economic conditions. He said his comments were provocative but not racist.

"I'm not a racist, and I could give you a string of reasons why I'm not," he said. "My entire business life has been dependent on finding good homes for all people, half of which are African-Americans, and all would tell you I treat them with respect."

The 43rd District Corley is seeking to represent covers parts of western Louisville and the East End's Indian Hills neighborhood. The district has been represented by state Rep. Darryl Owens, who is retiring, for more than a decade. Corley lost to Owens in the 2014 state House election. He ran for U.S. Congress in 2016 and was defeated in the GOP primary.

Democrat Charles Booker, who is running against Corley in the 43rd District this year, said his opponent's comments and appearance on the show will be a disqualification for most voters.

"Anyone that seeks to divide us, that seeks to demean and certainly cut down people who he's seeking to represent is not qualified to represent families and hard working Kentuckians, no matter what your race or background is," Booker said.

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Kentucky Democratic Party spokeswoman Marisa McNee said Thursday that state Republicans should demand Corley, who as of early Friday morning was featured on the state GOP website, withdraw from the race.

"His voice should be purged from our politics,” she said.

Republican Party of Kentucky spokesman Tres Watson said in a statement Friday that Corley is a "perennial candidate with a history of offensive statements and behavior."

"His views do not reflect those of the Republican Party of Kentucky," he said. "He has not received aid or assistance from the party in the past nor will he in the future."

Watson said Corley's picture and campaign information has been taken off the GOP website.

Corley said he doesn't intend to drop out of the race but questions the timing of the 2014 interview becoming more public months ahead of this year's midterm election.

But Corley isn't new to local controversies involving race in Louisville.

When he ran for the Republican nomination for Congress in 2016 he joined a lawsuit to stop the city from removing a Confederate monument located on the University of Louisville campus.

In a Facebook post, Corley called U of L professor Ricky Jones, who supported the monument's removal, "a damn dirty black bastard." He later said his remarks were an “inexcusable” mistake made in the heat of a stinging loss before he apologized to Jones.

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Jones said Thursday that he isn't surprised Corley appeared on the show given the rise of white nationalists and their sympathizers seeking public office. He pointed to U.S. Senate candidate Corey Stewart in Virginia, who has been endorsed by white neo-Confederate groups.

"The Republican Party has to take a long, deep look at what it is and the types of people and candidates it's attracting," Jones said.

Booker said that he is also troubled by how comfortable candidates with white supremacist sentiments feel about running on the GOP ticket at the state and national level.

Reporter Phillip M. Bailey can be reached at 502-582-4475 or pbailey@courierjournal.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/philb.