FOR LOVE OF GOD AND COUNTRY: Former State Senator Jason Rapert posted this pic of Iverson Jackson on Twitter in 2021 at an event called For Love of God and Country.

Governor Sarah Sanders named an outspoken Little Rock preacher and Republican leader as executive director of the state Fair Housing Commission Friday. 

Iverson Jackson, senior pastor of Zoe Baptist Church in Little Rock and a former lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Reserves, will lead the state agency. 

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If you thought the appointment of a new leader to this small state agency would be uncontroversial, you would be wrong. 

Jackson, who is Black, also happens to be an outspoken opponent of Critical Race Theory and is the chairman of the African American Coalition of Arkansas of the Republican Party of Arkansas. 

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In a 2021 interview with Tony Perkins, leader of the Family Research Council, Jackson said Critical Race Theory is “absolutely” getting a foothold in Arkansas. Jackson singled out Central Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas as having “some heavy blue” in them and said Critical Race Theory “is being coursed in those two parts of the state.” 

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Jackson, of course, did not provide any evidence that the graduate-level Critical Race Theory curriculum is being taught in Arkansas schools. 

Jackson said Critical Race Theory is being used to take the focus off “real issues,” such as the breakup of the family, a lack of individual responsibility and government interference with families. 

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Critical Race Theory teaches people that things are not their fault, he said. 

Jackson said he brushes off criticism and says “thank you” when someone calls him an Uncle Tom. Jackson provided a history of the individual Uncle Tom is based on and why he would welcome such criticism. 

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In 2015, Jackson traveled with other Black clergy to Washington, D.C. for a rally to remove a bust of Margaret Sanger from the National Portrait Gallery. Sanger was a birth control advocate in the early 20th Century and her work resulted in the modern birth control pill. 

Opponents say some of Sanger’s work in birth control was racist, intending to reduce the population of minorities, as one speaker at the rally reportedly said. 

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Here’s what Jackson said during the rally, according to one report: 

“This symbol, this portrait, this bust of Margaret Sanger is destroying this country because of its racist spirit,” Pastor Jackson, who serves as MTS state president, told participants. “We stand together here today to say Margaret Sanger’s bust must go.”

Jackson is also the vice president of an organization called Ministers Taking a S.T.A.N.D., which stands for Staying to America’s National Destiny. The group’s mission is a whopper that says the Left wants to create a secular socialist nation of de facto communism. 

The group’s website includes an oath people can take to assert their devotion to America despite their recognition that the constitution and Bill of Rights have been “eroded by the ignorance of citizens and trampled by certain government officials.” The oath is frameable for those who are so inclined. 

Twitter includes plenty of instances of Jackson speaking at Republican events around the state, including one called the Save America Freedom Tour with such Arkansas notables as Jan Morgan, Doc Washburn, and Joseph Wood. 

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For those seeking a bit of Friday afternoon merriment, here’s a video of Jason Rapert singing “This Little Light of Mine” and playing the fiddle at Jackson’s church in 2021. 

 

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