Growing up we watched the news on WRAL because it came out of the capital city of Raleigh, a reasonable distinction before the days of 24-7 news coverage. The logic was that the Raleigh station ñ would have the latest regarding the state of the State. That was Channel 5 - a number that in my youth was negatively associated with the clear villainy of Jesse Helms - a connection thankfully tempered in recent years by heroes that wore that number like Marcus Paige and Armando Bacot!
As a child I remember very clearly noting that the left-side of Helm's mouth configured into a sneer each time he pronounced the letter 'R.' Long before I even tried to understand what his horrid message was I disliked the man. Once I gathered the gist of his communication that dislike ballooned. In retrospect I can see that a lot of things began to inch off the rails as this cretin’s influence rose.
That he and his dirty tricks were acceptable was the tip-off that so much worse might be in the cards. Today in Congress the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, and Lauren Boebert represent the “Worst Ángels of our Nature” and manage to effortlessly out-Helms ‘Dear Jesse’ daily. Of course I believe that senator Helms’ life’s work is a huge negative on the planet and humanity and that his hands are deeply stained with the blood of 100s of thousands of Central Americans but as bad as he was I can’t get past the sense that the modern trumpist GOP is beyond even his famous malevolence. Still, were he around today I have no doubt that, not to be outdone, he’d adjust properly.
Helms attacked my Alma Mater with vigor and frankly he was a measure that we were on the right track. From our #DeepChatham den in the 1960s and ‘70s to hear the nightly foreshadowing on Channel 5 of today’s all too familiar trumpist juvenile name-calling in Helmsian phrases like “UNC: The University of Negroes and Communists” or “Not Chapel Hill - but Commie Hill” simply endeared the Southern Part of Heaven to me. After all, it was Coach Smith’s teamwork, passing, and winning style of play, communal to its core, that had gotten me on The Front Porch and with every Point to The Passer for an easy basket I knew more and more where the Better Ángels were based.
That the larger UNC System can still serve as a target for Senator No’s modern disciples and admirers is a comfort but that the same set now hold most of the reins of power is deeply disturbing. The consistent attacks on the 17 campuses and the humanities in particular has been Gerrymandered into an upper hand over a decade old now and much damage has been done. Imagine that crooked sneer on the face of Helms as he looks up from his eternal resting place and mutters Re-Education. In the trenches and classrooms the battle continues.
“#OTD in 1976 the final segment of ‘Viewpoint’ aired on WRAL-Raleigh. TV Journalist and Pundit Jesse Helms (Monroe NC) used the 5 minute nightly show (broadcast with the evening news) to transmit his Conservative Ideas and build his Senate career which, beginning in 1973, endured 30 years.”
Jesse Helms and “Viewpoint”
