Maurice Bessinger

Early life

Bessinger was born in Orangeburg County, South Carolina on July 14, 1930 and served in Army on the front lines of the Korean War, returning to the US in 1952.

Piggie Park and Carolina Gold

Bessinger, along with his brother Joe Jr., opened their first drive-in restaurant, Maurice's Piggy Park, in West Columbia, South Carolina in 1953. By 1968, he had four drive-ins, and by 2002 the chain had grown to nine restaurants. The barbecue was and continues to be well-regarded, and Piggie Park has been included in multiple compilations of the best barbecue in the United States.

Bessinger also sold BBQ under the Carolina Gold brand whose recipe included mustard, brown sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar. By 1999, this had become the largest BBQ operation in the United States.

Piggie Park restaurants were segregated, in that African-Americans were not allowed to eat inside the restaurants, until a lawsuit, Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc. won an injunction in 1968.

Segregation lawsuit

In 1964, Anne Newman, the wife of an African-American minister, sued Piggie Park after Bessinger refused her entry to his restaurant. Newman sued under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and won an injunction against the chain requiring them to stop refusing service to African-Americans. At the Supreme Court, this case also set a precedent assigning Attorney's fees to someone who successfully sues for an injunction under the Act.

Confederate flags

In 2000, the state of South Carolina stopped flying the Confederate Flag over the capitol, following a vote earlier that year. In response, Bessinger raised flags over his restaurants, also calling the flags "“a real Christian symbol...It's fighting tyranny and terror and suppressive government.”

A number of grocery chains responded by dropping Carolina Gold. The Council of Conservative Citizens and the South Carolina Heritage Coalition responded with a call to boycott Wal-Mart, and Bessinger filed a lawsuit against Bi-Lo, Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, Sam's Club, Wal-Mart, and Winn-Dixie, arguing that their refusal to carry his products violated South Carolina's Unfair Trading Practices Act and intruded onto his right to free speech. Bessinger asked for $50 million in damages. The South Carolina Supreme Court rejected his claims in 2007.

The flags were removed in 2010.

Views on race and religion

Bessinger was a Baptist, and argued in Newman that requiring that he serve African-American customers was a violation of his religious beliefs.

Bessinger believed that "God gave slaves to whites.", and claimed that South Carolina had had a gentler "Biblical slavery". In 2000, The State columnist John Monk wrote a column about the restaurants noting that one being sold by the restaurant, John Weaver's Biblical View of Slavery argued against the idea that slavery is inherently evil, since it appears in the Bible.

Bessinger also notably opposed flying flags at half-mast following the death of Martin Luther King, saying King had only been in Memphis "to stir hatred, violence, and discord."

Politics

Bessinger ran for a seat in the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1964, narrowly losing by a margin of around 100 votes. A 1974 run for governor was far less successful, drawing only 2.5% of the vote in the Democratic primary.

Behind the scenes, in 1964 he was Chairman of the George Wallace presidential campaign.

In the 1970s, he was also the chairman of the South Carolina Independent Party.

Autobiography

In 2001, Bessinger published his autobiography, Defending My Heritage.

Thompson's take on the book was direct, saying that "Bessinger's gasbagging autobiography is one of the most weirdly entertaining summations of the delusional cultural southern mind-set ever printed. My favorite line about growing up Southern: 'White people are the best friends, historically that blacks ever had.'" Dabney and Coker were perhaps more gentle, noting that it covered his "success in the barbecue restaurant business and to explain his defense of the Southern way of life.