Down here in the Deep South, calls to bring back the hanging noose are coming from an unlikely source: a 62-year-old, black Republican mayoral candidate in Mississippi’s largest city.
Long-shot George Lambus acknowledges his inflammatory platform has made some residents of Jackson slam doors in his face. Others walked out of a church where he spoke. Yet he insists his tough stand is welcome in some quarters of a state capital racked by crime, much of it black-on-black.
As the only GOP hopeful among nearly a dozen Democrats and four independents, his chances of winning the June election are slim: the majority-black city of about 180,000 is so heavily Democratic that no Republican has won the mayor’s race in modern history. Yet, Lambus hopes to stand out in a crowded field by packing a silver pistol and talking bluntly about crime.
“Crime can only be alleviated by a noose and a stout tree limb,” Lambus wrote in one of several homemade flyers he passes out in Jackson neighborhoods. “I will provide the noose and when the economy improves, I will get the jobs here.”
The Mississippi Republican Party is not supporting Lambus. GOP Chairman Brad White said Lambus’ message doesn’t reflect “the values that we represent.”
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“Look at recent history, like in South Africa, when apartheid was abolished,” Lambus said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “Blacks went on a crime spree. Other blacks got tired of it . . . and they formed vigilantes and they killed people. It brought the crime down.”
His pistol nearby as he peered out a window at his decaying Jackson neighborhood, Lambus added: “When you cut your yard, carry a gun. When you go to church, carry a gun. When you go to school, carry a gun.”
Lambus also asserts that executions are the only way to control crime, adding “If we look at the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, it’s driven with blood.”
