NC DEMOCRATS GRAPPLE WITH HISTORY

Kudos to NC Democratic Party Chair Jerry Meek for leading the party to remember and to deal with its racist past: "The N.C. Democratic Party is expected to apologize later this week for its role in the 1898 white supremacy campaign and Wilmington race riot."

If you don't know that history, you should. If you don't know how reversed the two major parties were in those days, you should. White mountain Republicans, especially, were allied with their black brethren against a race-baiting Democratic Party.

That history partially explains why Harvey Gantt had such a daunting time in 1990 against Jesse Helms. But also why Gantt's accomplishment in carrying Watauga County by over a thousand votes that year was historically significant and maybe not all that surprising.