Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, and generally a fairly pro-U.S., classical liberal leader has been visiting the U.S. for the last week or so, and keeping an online diary of his experiences. His tour took him to Alabama. Here’s his entry from that day, in Czech.

A Czech friend of mine (who got to meet Klaus while he was in Washington) translated one passage he found particularly disconcerting. Klaus’ speech in Birmingham included what were described as “400 Alabama VIPs,” or, as another put it, the “400 most important people in Alabama.” According to Klaus, he was moved by the black gospel choir brought in to sing at the start of the event (“…real, genuine gospel. It was a great experience!”).

Until Klaus noticed that the choir represented the only black people in the room. Not a single black person among the 400 VIPs. In a state that’s 25 percent black.

Klaus found this troubling. I do, too.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 9:26 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.