La. will pardon activist in honor of MLK Day

[CrimsonTide4]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...nhonorofmlkday


Sad it took THIS long. . .


article excerpt:
A woman arrested while trying to integrate a public swimming pool in 1963 will be the first person pardoned by Gov. Kathleen Blanco as part of Monday's ceremonies honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The governor planned to grant the pardon for Betty Claiborne, now chaplain at the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison.


"I thought that it would speak to the way Louisiana has changed, and it also speaks to certain injustices of the past," the governor said Friday.


Claiborne, then a 20-year-old college student, was convicted of simple battery for trying to integrate the City Park pool in Baton Rouge. The pool was a social hub for the white community in Louisiana's capital city in the 1960s. Claiborne's conviction was for a misdemeanor, but she could not continue as chaplain at the prison with it on her record, said Denise Bottcher, spokeswoman for Blanco.