Former radio host with white nationalist ties wants your vote for Shelby County Assessor

Their voices crackle with mirth and loathing as the two men, both right-wing radio hosts, tell an arch-conservative listening audience the “real’’ story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“He was just a dumpy, five-foot-six, fat, greasy, white-hating Communist. That’s all he was,’’ says James Edwards, host of an obscure weekly radio program called The Political Cesspool. His commentary on this wintry, January night prompts his then co-host, Keith Alexander, to offer his own critique of King.

“They (the Communists) had to give him plenty of money to keep him on task,'' Alexander offers in a pronounced Southern drawl, "because if they hadn’t he would have just gone on into doing what so many black ministers do, which is, to, you know, preying on his congregation… and chasing after the women in his congregation, too.’’

It's the sort of discussion that might have colored the airwaves of Montgomery, Ala., in 1956 or 1963 Birmingham – but this was Memphis in 2016.

And Alexander isn’t just another disgruntled Trumpian of the ultra-Right. He's a seasoned politician running for office -- and he wants your vote.

As the Republican Party's 2014 nominee for Shelby County Property Assessor, Alexander is running again for the post in Tuesday’s two-man Republican primary.

He's severed ties with "too extreme" group and left radio show

He doesn't believe his recent past affiliation with The Political Cesspool or with the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) -- labeled a white nationalist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center -- should count against him.

"I don't consider myself a right-wing extremist,'' Alexander, 67, told The Commercial Appeal earlier this week. An attorney who's practiced law over the past four decades in Memphis, Alexander said he's severed ties with the CCC, which he now calls "probably too extreme" and with The Political Cesspool, a three-hour show broadcast on Saturday nights from WMQM AM-1600 in Memphis.

Though he co-hosted the show as recently as Dec. 30, Alexander says he was never a mainstay, just an occasional co-host and a "moderating influence'' on Edwards, 37, the show's founder and chief personality.

"I don't believe in racism or white nationalism or any of those things. OK?'' Alexander said. "...The idea of having any racially homogeneous nation, that ship has sailed.''

Under the radar

The candidate's right-wing affiliations largely have flown under the radar in this year's race to replace Assessor Cheyenne Johnson, a Democrat, who is retiring. The campaign website of Alexander's Republican opponent, Robert "Chip'' Trouy, doesn't mention Alexander. Shelby County Republican Party Chairman Lee Mills could not be reached, but executive committee member Arnold Weiner said Alexander's views "have absolutely no place in the Republican Party.''

"I knew this was coming up,'' said Weiner, who is running for County Clerk. "I do not share his views at all, and I've told him that.''

The Assessor's duties are more technical than political -- appraising property values to help determine the amount of taxes individual owners will pay -- yet Weiner said the type of views Alexander espouses drive many otherwise conservative African-American voters away from Republicans.

"I'm concerned about the future of the Party,'' said Weiner, who emphasized that he is speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the Republican Party.

Alexander's reaction to removal of Confederate statues

During an airing of The Political Cesspool in December, Edwards and Alexander spoke out against taking down the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general who made a fortune as a slave trader before the Civil War.

“What we were told was that, of course, once that monument was removed all black violent crime would cease. The IQ levels would come up,'' Edwards quipped during the broadcast, prompting Alexander to say:

“They can’t solve any real problems like infant mortality or high crime rates or functional illiteracy and illegitimacy, things like that. But they can with the help of certain enablers from a certain religious persuasion start destroying Western civilization and white heritage.''

During the same broadcast the two men also spoke about the infamous "Unite the Right'' rally of white nationalists last August in Charlottesville, Va., where two state troopers died in a helicopter crash and a counter-protester was killed when an alleged white supremacist drove a vehicle through a crowd of people.

"The name Unite the Right was coined because we decided we were tired of letting people that had meant us no good to divide us,'' Alexander said, explaining the rally organizers welcomed a range of activists, from supporters of Confederate general Robert E. Lee on one end to people who might "want to re-institute slavery.''

Asked about those comments this week, Alexander said he believes Confederate monuments still have a place in contemporary society.

“I don’t have any problem with keeping Confederate monuments. I don’t think slavery is to be celebrated or anything like that,'' he said. "But on the other hand (they are) bigger cultural icons for a significant part of the population."

The "myth" of King

Edwards and Alexander devoted a January 2016 broadcast to "breaking down the myth'' of King.

"Martin Luther King was really a bad man,'' Alexander said. "In fact, I doubt that very many people in the audience have within their circle of friends and acquaintances a man that was worse than Martin Luther King.’’

“Short of a murderer or a pedophile,'' Edwards jumped in, "I think Martin Luther King really represents about the lowest common denominator of an American that you could get,''

“He’s certainly is not as bad a man as Jack the Ripper or something like that for example or (serial killer) John Wayne Gacy or somebody like that,'' Alexander added. "He is not a murderer. He is not somebody that did those types of things. But he did go to jail. And that’s really key."

Alexander linked King to lingering poor relations between police and many young African Americans today.

“Why is there a Black Lives Matter movement? Because black males in particular seem to have problems relating to authority or, you know, obeying authority. Or respecting authority. Particularly police authority,’’ he said, pointing to King as their role model.

“What was it that Martin Luther King did? Well, he basically resisted and disrespected authority. Particularly police authority.’’

Council of Conservative Citizens labeled a hate group by Southern Poverty Law Center

Records show Alexander served on the board of directors of the Missouri-based CCC as recently as 2015. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the civil rights watchdog group, describes the CCC as a "modern reincarnation of the old White Citizens Councils'' formed to battle school desegregation in the South. Edwards also has served as a director.

SPLC identifies Edwards as a white nationalist extremist whose radio show is "overtly racist'' and "anti-Semitic.'' Promotional audio for the show describes it as "dedicated to the unapologetic advocacy on behalf of European Americans.'' Edwards said on the show in December he will take his fight to "the enemy of our God, to the enemy of our people, to the enemy of our culture.''

As for Alexander, he said he teamed with Edwards hoping "it would work into possibly where I could get a syndicated radio show. But it didn’t. So I just gave it up.''

Asked if he had any regrets, he said, "it just didn’t lead to where it was supposed to, where I was hoping it would go ... So in that regard, yeah, I do.''