A prominent NAACP official recognized Martin Luther King Day by labeling black senator Tim Scott a puppet for the Republican party. “A ventriloquist can always find a good dummy,” said Reverend William Barber II, the president of North Carolina’s NAACP chapter.

The State reports that Barber’s remarks came in a speech in Scott’s home state of South Carolina. “The extreme right wing down here,” he said, “finds a black guy to be senator and claims he’s the first black senator since Reconstruction and then he goes to Washington, D.C., and articulates the agenda of the Tea Party.”


Last year, Barber gained national attention leading the “Moral Monday” protests in opposition to North Carolina’s Republican governor, Pat McCrory.

Scott is the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction. He dismissed Barber’s remarks as ”baseless and meaningless rhetoric.”

“I will honor the memory of Dr. King by being proactive in holding the door for others and serving my fellow man. And Rev. Barber will remind me and others of what not to do,” he told the Daily Caller.

Via Mediaite.