LEAVENWORTH, KS — A white county commissioner in Kansas should resign after claiming he was “part of the master race” when talking to an African-American consultant during a public meeting last week, Gov. Jeff Colyer said. Colyer is the latest public official to demand that Louis Klemp, the chairman of the Leavenworth County Board of Commissioners, step down.
“Racial and discriminative language have no place in our society, and most especially when spoken by someone holding a public office,” Colyer said in a statement. “The inappropriate remarks made by Leavenworth County Commissioner Louis Klemp are unacceptable and do not reflect the values of the county which he represents. As such I call on him to step down as county commissioner.”
Klemp made the controversial remarks on Nov. 13 when the planner, Triveece Penelton, of the Kansas City consulting company Vireo, presented development options for a stretch of county road near the growing town of Tonganoxie.
“I don’t want you to think I’m picking on you, because, we’re part of the master race,” Klemp said, raising his fingers to his teeth as he spoke to Penelton. “You know you got a gap in your teeth, we are part of the master race, don’t ever forget that.”
Neither Klemp nor the Board of Commissioners in Leavenworth County immediately returned Patch’s phone call requesting comment.
Leavenworth County’s two other commissioners earlier called on Klemp to resign. Klemp’s term ends in January. He was appointed to the position last year to fill an unexpired term.
“I was shocked. I was in disbelief,” Commissioner Bob Holland told television station KSHB. “He should resign. I don’t care if he’s got two days left, he should resign.”
He continued: “I’m ashamed of one of our commissioners and what he has done. We shouldn’t be labeled as Leavenworth County, the racist county. That’s the way I feel we are being labeled.”
Klemp’s replacement, Commissioner-elect Vicky Kaaz, told The Leavenworth Times that Klemp has “embarrassed our community.”
Tuesday wasn’t the first time Klemp has talked about slavery and Robert E. Lee, the Confederate Army general. Last year, Holland asked the Kansas attorney general to give an opinion on whether Klemp can be removed as the chairman of the Board of Commissioners over those remarks.
The board of commissioners was discussing holidays for county employees at the time. Klemp said he was bothered that Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but not George Washington’s birthday.
“Not everybody does them all, because we have Robert E. Lee, who, God, Robert E. Lee, wonderful part of history,” Klemp said at the time. “We don’t have Washington anymore. He may be removed anyway because he had slaves.”
Continuing his spiel, Klemp outlined his own family’s slave-owning history, the Kansas City Star reported, and said President Lincoln’s legacy would never be fully realized because “the other side didn’t win, which was all good, I guess.” He also questioned why non-Veterans get a day off on Veterans Day and if Oprah Winfrey would get her own holiday.
Photo via Shutterstock; video via Leavenworth County’s YouTube channel.