The attack against Southerners appearing in old photos has now ensnared District Attorney General Glenn Funk, who revealed his photo appearance in an attempt to get ahead of the story, multiple media outlets report.
WKRN reports that Funk, of the 20th Judicial District in Nashville, appeared in a 1982 Wake Forest University yearbook photo with the Kappa Alpha Order, who were posing with the Confederate flag. Funk issued this statement:
Last week, I read media reports that Governor Bill Lee was a KA at Auburn in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Given the attention given to this fact, I feel compelled to disclose that when I was in college at Wake Forest 37 years ago, I was also a member of the Kappa Alpha fraternity. I went back and looked through my college annuals. In 1982, my picture appeared in a group photo in the yearbook with the Confederate flag prominently displayed. I was wrong to participate in divisive and hurtful behavior. I apologize for the hurt caused then and now.
Last week Gannett dug up a 39-year-old university fraternity yearbook photo showing Gov. Bill Lee dressed in a Confederate uniform with other members of Kappa Alpha Order who were dressed in period clothing, The Tennessee Star reported. The photo was from Auburn University.
Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill chastised Gannett for searching wide and far for a 39-year-old photo.
“The amount of time that The Tennessean and other Gannett publications have devoted to scouring college yearbooks playing 30 and 40-year-old games of gotcha over costume parties explains better than anything else why their journalistic ‘empire’ is collapsing around them,” Gill said. “Real stories, real issues, and real news are all ignored by the Main Stream Media as they focus all their attention on propaganda and smear campaigns.”
The photo crusade began in January with Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who was accused of appearing in a racist photo in either blackface or a Ku Klux Klan outfit. The governor denied he was either person after initially apologizing, The Star reported. Northam admitted to once dressing up in blackface to imitate Michael Jackson in 1984.
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Jason M. Reynolds has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist at outlets of all sizes.
Photo “Glenn Funk” by Vanderbilt University Law School.
LMAO!