Published: October 20, 2006 08:21 am            

Racism hurts all of Corbin

The graffiti read: “Corbin don’t like niggers. Get out now.”

Published Oct. 14

There’s an infamous story about Corbin that many residents have heard.

Over the years, details change, parts become exaggerated, but essentially, so the story goes, in 1919, a group of white residents rounded up about 200 black railroad workers and ran them out of town on the train they came in on.

There are few black people in Corbin today, and the town’s reputation — deserved or not — has always been shadowed by that story.

Last week’s vandalism of an interracial couple’s apartment did nothing but further Corbin’s reputation as a town with a history of intolerance.

The couple recently moved to Corbin from Madison County, according to Corbin police investigating the incident. After being evicted from their apartment on legal grounds, the couple was in the process of moving out.

The couple discovered the graffiti when they returned from shopping.

It read, “Corbin don’t like niggers. Get out now.”

So, no matter what history tells us, there is racism in Corbin — the misspelled, grammatically incorrect writing is on the wall.

This incident should outrage everyone in town. Corbin’s reputation, whether real or blurred through the decades, still hinges on that incident at the railroad yards in 1919, not Corbin’s current growth or development.

As the Corbin Economic Development Agency flaunts, the town is located on Interstate 75, in the beautiful Daniel Boone National Forest, and within 600 miles of 51 percent of the retail sales markets in the U.S.

None of that matters — and Corbin will never be taken seriously as place for industry and growth — if scrawlings like this keep popping up.

This entire act is spineless, ignorant and — almost equally disturbing — the perpetrator couldn’t even spell “nigger.” One may believe this is a statement against the Niger River, or the politics of the west-African country of Niger... but we know that’s not the case.

Presently, there are no suspects and police have few significant leads. But, to the person or persons who did this, shame on you.

To those who know who did it, shame on you for not reporting it to the police.

        

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