Mourners who attended a viewing of former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms on Monday remembered the conservative champion as the last politician of his kind.
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(Photo: AP Images / Gerry Broome)Former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms' casket is carried into Hayes-Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C., Monday, July 7, 2008. Helms will lie in repose today and funeral services will be held Tuesday. Helms, who represented North Carolina in the Senate from 1973 to 2003, died Friday.
Helms, who died Friday after years of failing health, lay in a closed casket covered with a U.S. flag and flanked by state troopers at Hayes-Barton Baptist Church.
The Republican, who served in the Senate from 1973 to 2003, worshipped there for decades and served as a deacon.
The front of the sanctuary was decorated with a painting of Helms at work and flowers from U.S. senators including Elizabeth Dole, who took Helms' seat when he retired in 2003.
"The Bible teaches that your 'yes' means 'yes' and your 'no' means 'no,'" said Parker Gresham, 39, of Raleigh. "That's something he followed. You always knew where he stood."
The funeral was scheduled for 2 p.m. Tuesday, followed by a private burial for family members.
Ashley Reid, 50, said he remembered Helms as a man who represented a different type of politics.
"I don't think we have any true statesmen today — I think Jesse was one of the last statesmen the Senate ever had," said Reid, whose father-in-law used to cut Helms' hair in Raleigh. "I didn't totally agree with everything Jesse said. He was controversial. He was polarizing. But I liked the way he stuck to his guns."
Helms won election to the Senate in 1972 and rose to become a powerful committee chairman before deciding not to seek re-election in 2002.
He never lost a political race, but his margin of victory was never large, reflecting his image as a polarizing figure both at home and in Washington. In the Senate, he forced roll-call votes that required Democrats to take politically difficult votes on cultural issues, such as federal funding for art he deemed pornographic, school busing and flag-burning.
He also ran racially tinged campaigns in his last two runs for Senate, defeating former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt, who is black, in 1990 and 1996.
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Comments
GOD is GOD. However too many right wing neo cons are looking for leader to take them bolding into the 1950's, where every body knew their place.
JHS,
Praise God for that! Praise God He's not a liberal either!
tpique1
My God is very big, he just not a right wing republican!!!!
If the liberals hated him, he must have been a good man.
JHS,
There's a whole new generation coming up who are more determined than the Kennedys and Falwells that will turn the world on end all in due season. Do you really think the passing of a few godly men is going to sway God's plan? Do you think it scares Him? Christianity does not hinge on whether Falwell is active in politics or not or whether Kennedy is on the air. Your "god" is too small.
1st Falwell, then James Kennedy, and now Helms I am sure that the right wing bible thumping political religious hacks are booo hooing right now, going who's next, who going tolead us back to the 1950's?