From his early days as television commentator and on through a three-decade career in Congress, former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms never left any doubt about his beliefs.... He was against civil rights and gay rights. Against abortion and communism. Against school busing and giving up the Panama Canal.... Friends remembered him as a patriot. Many noted with reverence that he died on the Fourth of July, as did Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and praised his legacy as an unyielding conservative champion. (Whitney Woodward, AP)

This past week, Bob Dole dubbed Helms a “conservative icon” and Trent Lott said that Helms was “one of the giants of the ‘80s and ‘90s in the United States Senate." Lott and Dole were not alone. Many members of the media have waxed eulogies of his life with the kind of respect Helms could never muster up for people who share my skin color.

Though I search my heart for forgiveness, I'm not yet finding it. This doesn't worry me. It will come when it's time. I think the truth must come first. When facing such a trespasser, one need not rush into forgiveness.

Nope. It is not a sin to be angry, nor is it wrong to call out the perpetrator of a crime. So, despite the media's short memory, I will eulogize Helms differently.

While Helms was often praised for his good humor, it’s not clear that this extended to his interaction with black people. For instance, when Helms encountered Carol Mosley Braun, the first African-American woman to serve in the Senate, in the elevator, he told a colleague: “Watch me make her cry. I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing ‘Dixie’ until she cries.” Then, emphasizing the lines about how “good” things were before the Civil War ended slavery, Helms sang “Dixie.” Helms also turned his back on Nelson Mandela when he visited Congress in 1994. Such are the charms of this world-renowned “Southern gentleman.” (Think Again: You Don’t Know Jesse)

If you are young like me, you might guess that Senator Helms was a blow hard radical that no one took seriously. You might want to believe that all those years, that he was just living on the edges of the government and was not taken seriously by his fellow conservatives or his fellow Christians or - by anyone.

If you guess it, though, you'd be wrong. Helms was not at all on the periphery. He was a man of power and influence. The man was not just a blip in our political landscape.

He was a mountain. A fixture. A mover and a shaker. And, a blatant racist.

Who was he? Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. (18 October 1921 – 4 July 2008) was a five-term Republican U.S. Senator from North Carolina who served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001.

Helms was, by everyone's estimation, a major influence on social conservatism. He is widely credited with intervening to rescue Ronald Reagan's political career.

Helms was the longest-serving popularly-elected senator in North Carolina history and was widely credited with shifting the one-party state dominated by the Democratic Party into a competitive two-party state that usually votes Republican in presidential elections.

Jesse Helms, whose 30-year Senate career helped redefine conservatism, was remembered Tuesday as a gracious friend and formidable foe during a funeral service that packed a Baptist church and drew such dignitaries as Vice President Cheney and Cindy McCain, wife of Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. (Jesse Helms Recalled as Waging the 'Good Fight')

Whenever a bully dies without mending his ways or making amends, the bully leaves us with his burden. What are we to do with it? Should we forget about it? Should we learn from it? Isn't it just as important to remember Apartheid and Mandela's time in prison as it is to remember South Africa's revolution and Mandela's election as South Africa's first black president?

I grapple with these questions. Should we gloss over the fact that people like Jess Helms made Martin King's work harder and only remember Rev. King's triumphs? Shouldn't we also remember those that perpetuated the racism that kept Rev. King from joining us on the mountaintop?

Helms termed Martin Luther King Jr. a Communist and a pervert, and characterized the civil rights as a bunch of “moral degenerates.” As the heroic non-violent marchers gained power, drawing primarily on black churches nationwide, Helms proclaimed that, “The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that’s thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men’s rights.”

I sat this week torn between feelings of compassion and anger, forgiveness and unrelenting memory. Then, I found this in the news two days ago. While I felt sadness for the gentleman in this story who lost his job, I was pleased to learn that I was not the only person grappling with anger at Helms' death.

A longtime North Carolina state employee has chosen to retire instead of lowering flags to honor former Sen. Jesse Helms, saying in an e-mail that the late conservative had a "doctrine of negativity, hate and prejudice."

U.S. and state flags flew at half-staff on Monday and Tuesday following an order from Gov. Mike Easley. Helms died Friday.

L.F. Eason III, director of the state Standards Laboratory — which calibrates equipment for critical measurements such as the weight of medicines or trucks on a highway — told his staff to ignore the directive. He sent workers an e-mail saying he didn't think it was appropriate.

"I don't see how anybody could celebrate his career," the 51-year-old said in an interview, noting Helms' opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the filibuster to stall the effort to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday. "Everything he did was such a disservice to this state."

Eason, who had worked for 29 years at the Department of Agriculture, requested the option to retire Monday after his superiors overruled his decision and ordered the flags be lowered. Eason wrote an e-mail to the governor and other supervisors saying he could not in good conscience honor Helms. (NC employee refuses to lower flags for late Helms)

Helms tapped into the fears of many white, middle and working class American people who felt that their country was being taken away from them by the liberals in government in Washington, and was controlled by the media in New York. He exploited those fears in his election campaigns.

Helms warned that, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced."

"You needed that job. And you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair?" he asked potential voters.

"Just think about it, homosexuals, lesbians - disgusting people - marching in our streets, demanding all sorts of things including the right to marry each other and the right to adopt children. How do you like (that)?" Helms once said.

Within the (openly) conservative media, Helms was declared a national hero. National Review’s Mark Levin mourned the “Death of a Conservative Great,” The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund said that “If Ronald Reagan was the sunny and optimistic face of modern conservatism, the uncompromisingly defiant exemplar of it was Jesse Helms,” and a blogger at the American Conservative wrote that, “On Capitol Hill, conservatives had no finer champion than Jesse Helms, the longtime Republican senator from North Carolina.”

It’s hardly news that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. But as we enter what is certain to be an historic, but racially charged presidential election, it is hardly an encouraging sign that our media have so much difficulty uttering clear and objective truths about so divisive a figure. Let’s hope that this coverage represented mere squeamishness about uttering unflattering facts about the recently deceased. (Think Again: You Don’t Know Jesse)

I find some hope in my own anger this week, actually. So, I think I'll hang on to it for awhile yet. Yes, I'll get to forgiveness, but just not now. Not yet.

I'm finding that there's still some good to reap by shining my little light on a little truth.