La. Lawmaker’s ‘Buckwheat’ Remark Stirs Ire
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
HOUMA, La. — A white state lawmaker in a runoff election called a black civil-rights veteran who had helped her campaign “Buckwheat,” prompting the NAACP to urge voters to kick her out of office.
Rep. Carla Blanchard Dartez, a Democrat, acknowledged that she ended a Thursday night conversation with Hazel Boykin by saying, “Talk to you later, Buckwheat.” Ms. Dartez had been thanking Ms. Boykin for driving voters to the polls.
Buckwheat, a black child character in the “Little Rascals” comedies of the 1930s and ’40s, is viewed as a racial stereotype.
Ms. Boykin, 75, helped desegregate restaurants and the parish school system in the 1960s.
“I’ve never had no one talk to me that way, and I considered it a racial slur,” Hazel Boykin said.
