Lamar White Jr.

Lamar White Jr. (born 1982)[1] is an American publisher, investigative journalist, political blogger, and civil rights activist from New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the founder and publisher of The Bayou Brief a non-profit, Louisiana-based news and culture publication.[2]

Lamar White Jr.
Born (1982-05-05) May 5, 1982
Alexandria, Louisiana, U.S.
EducationRice University
Southern Methodist University
Occupation(s)Activist, writer

White is primarily known for his investigative reporting on racism and political corruption in the American Deep South.[3]

Early life

White was born in Alexandria, Louisiana and graduated from Alexandria Senior High School, a public high school in Rapides Parish, in 2000.

At the age of twelve months, he was diagnosed with spastic quadriplegia, a subset of cerebral palsy, which required a series of corrective orthopedic and neurological medical procedures and daily physical therapy.[4] His parents, Carol Rhodes White and Lamar White, Sr. were both regionally well-known and successful real estate brokers and investors.[5]

After high school, White graduated from Rice University in Houston earning a BA in English and Religious Studies. In 2001, when he was a freshman at Rice, his father died in a single car accident at the age of 41.[5]

White returned to his hometown of Alexandria in 2005 to work for the mayoral campaign of Jacques Roy and subsequently as Roy's publicist and special assistant. In 2011, he moved to Dallas, Texas, and enrolled in law school at Southern Methodist University, his late father's alma mater.[4]

He is the grandson of philanthropist Joanne Lyles White, a and the great-nephew of the late historian Sue Eakin.

Career

In 2005, White launched CenLamar, a self-published political commentary website about Louisiana. Although the website was never a professional venture, his work as a freelance blogger eventually attracted statewide attention and notoriety. A decade later, when he shuttered the publication, the site had attracted more than two million readers.[6]

In 2012, White was the last person to engage in an online argument with the conservative new media mogul Andrew Breitbart, minutes before he unexpectedly died. Breitbart's final tweet is an apology to White for calling him a "putz".[7]

Later that year, White first exposed problems in Louisiana voucher schools, including Light City Academy, which was led by a self-proclaimed "prophet" who taught students how to become "prophets." Light City Academy was closely associated with several questionable nonprofit organizations; there were questions about the financing of the school.[8] Following White's report, Light City Academy was prohibited from accepting any additional voucher students.[9]

In October 2014, White advocated on behalf of Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, who was defeated in 2014 by Republican Greg Abbott.[10] Davis featured White as a speaker about disability rights and Governor-elect Abbott's record on the Americans with Disabilities Act. White wrote for the Houston Chronicle about his disability and the identity politics surrounding disabilities.[11]

Steve Scalise controversy

On December 29, 2014, White published evidence on CenLamar that Representative Steve Scalise had attended an international white supremacist conference in 2002.[12] Scalise admitted his attendance to The Washington Post.[13]

Bobby Jindal portrait

On February 3, 2015, White tweeted a photograph of a portrait of former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. The portrait, which White incorrectly described as the governor's official portrait, had been displayed prominently at the entrance to his office in the state Capitol. The portrait depicted Jindal, an Indian-American, as significantly more light-skinned than he appears, spurring a national discussion about racial identity and representation.[14]

In June 2017, White permanently closed his website CenLamar and launched a professional nonprofit news publication, The Bayou Brief.

On September 10, 2018, White uncovered evidence that bot accounts had been inundating Twitter with identical messages of support for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz during the middle of his intense campaign against Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke. White's tweet about this suspicious online activity was shared more than 35,000 times and had been read by more than 3.5 million people within a day.[15]

Cindy Hyde-Smith public hanging remarks

On November 11, 2018, White published a ten-second video clip of interim U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi at a small gathering in Tupelo. The video shows the end of a local cattle rancher praising the senator. Hyde-Smith then says, "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row." White's publication of her comments quickly went viral, which many understood to be a clear reference to lynchings, and Hyde-Smith, whose opponent is an African American, was swiftly condemned by civil rights leaders and organizations across the country. Hyde-Smith refused to apologize, and instead, she claimed her comment was an "exaggerated expression of regard".[3]

References
  1. "Lamar White, Jr". Facebook. May 1, 2005. Retrieved 2014-12-17.
  2. "Bayou Brief Founder Lamar White Discusses Disability, Louisiana, and the Law". Above the Law. Aug 25, 2017. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
  3. "Mississippi senator's 'public hanging' remark draws rebuke". Associated Press. 2018-11-12. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
  4. White, Lamar, Jr. (July 2015). "A Proud Legacy". The Texas Bar Journal. 78 (7): 532–533. Retrieved 2018-11-14.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. Gunn, Billy (January 5, 2015). "Meet Alexandria's Lamar White Jr.: The blogger who penned story about U.S. Rep. Scalise speaking to David Duke-led group in 2002". The Acadiana Advocate.
  6. Sharkey, Richard (April 20, 2016). "Lamar White Jr. forms consulting firm". The Town Talk. Alexandria, LA.
  7. "Andrew Breitbart's Last Public Insult: The Putz Says It Was a Fluke". ABC News. March 1, 2012. Retrieved 2014-12-17.
  8. Miller, Heather (Aug 7, 2012). "Vouchers sending $700k to 'prophet'". The Independent.
  9. "State Begins Voucher Applications". Associated Press News. January 20, 2014. Retrieved 2014-12-17.
  10. "Disabled Speaker At Wendy Davis Event Slams Conservatives Who Mocked Him on Facebook". Raw Story. October 13, 2014. Retrieved 2014-12-17.
  11. "White: Abbott Backers Wrong About Wheelchair In Ad". Houston Chronicle. October 2014. Retrieved 2014-12-17.
  12. "How Louisiana Blogger Lamar White, Jr. Landed the Steve Scalise Scoop". The Huffington Post. December 30, 2014. Retrieved 2015-01-15.
  13. "House Majority Whip Steve Scalise confirms he spoke with white supremacists in 2002". The Washington Post. 2014-12-29. Archived from the original on 2018-11-15. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
  14. "Bobby Jindal on portrait: I'm not white". USA Today. 2015-02-09. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
  15. "Ted Cruz's Bot Army". Sky Dancing. 2018-09-13. Retrieved 2018-11-14.

Further reading
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