Maine Gov. LePage says NAACP should apologize to white people

Hours after saying civil rights leader John Lewis should be grateful for what Republican presidents have done for black people, Maine Gov. Paul LePage says the NAACP should apologize to white people.

The white GOP governor told the Portland Press Herald that "the blacks, the NAACP" paint all white people with one brush and that calling every white American a racist is an "insult."

Earlier Tuesday, LePage criticized Lewis over his comments that Republican Donald Trump is not a "legitimate president." LePage said Lewis needed a history lesson and then incorrectly said that GOP Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes fought against Jim Crow laws.

The president of the NAACP Portland branch says it's unfortunate LePage tried to revise history and disparage a civil rights leader.

 

LePage, who's white, said on WVOM-FM that the black Democratic Georgia congressman needs a lesson on how Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and how Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes fought against Jim Crow laws.

LePage says, "A simple thank you would suffice."

Lincoln pushed for the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery. But historians say that Jim Crow laws didn't exist during the Grant administration and that Hayes' presidency set the stage for the creation of Jim Crow laws.