North Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor, a leading Republican gubernatorial candidate for the 2024 election, has a history of saying negative things about the civil rights movement.
His past comments directly contradict a campaign strategy he’s used over the past few years that touts his hometown as an epicenter for the movement and his heralding of some of those local leaders.
In a deep dive into the views of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, CNN compiled a collection of public comments made over the past five years where the GOP frontrunner disparaged the civil rights work of leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, Fannie Lou Hamer and those from his home state.
He compared the work of civil rights activists with the goals of communists.
Related: ‘He Was a Dedicated Asset to Our Community’: Civil Rights Lawyer Alton Maddox, Who Fought for Black People’s Liberation, Laid to Rest at 77
Much of his rhetoric included claims that the movement that abolished legal segregation, established voting and housing rights, and integrated public schools was a communist ploy to “subvert capitalism.” He said the aims of those that pushed the agenda forward were “to subvert free choice and where you go to school and things like that.”
Years before being elected as the 35th lieutenant governor of his state, his first political office, the Greensboro native started criticizing the goals of the civil rights movement.
One example was in March 2018. He said as a guest on the “Politics and Prophecy” podcast with Chris Levels, “So many things were lost during the civil rights movement.”
Robinson asked his host to look at the sit-ins that students did in North Carolina at stores like Woolworth. While explaining that America operates in a “free market” system, he lambasted the decision to sit at a counter where Blacks would not be served and demand that whites take their money.
“[So, you] sit…
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