Leslie Taylor

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It arrived on my desk in a small stack of mail, with a May 9, Jacksonville, Fla., postmark and no return address.

A standard, business-size envelope, full of hate.

A proclamation that Martin Luther King Jr. was a fraud, that the day in January set aside to celebrate his life and legacy should be repealed.

That the biased news media, while having extensively covered the Duke lacrosse rape case, which involved a black woman and at least three white athletes before it collapsed, is all but ignoring the brutal double-murder of a white couple, allegedly at the hands of five black people.

Sent anonymously, with an intended dose of creepiness.

Sent, I guess, by someone surfing the Net for journalists, someone with an agenda to advance and enough time and spare postage to educate people about "the truth."

The letter lay on my desk longer than it should have, its contents appalling but intriguing in the same way an accidental tuning into Rush Limbaugh might be to a National Public Radio listener.

The letter offered a clear view of where other minds linger. And sometimes you just can't turn away.

While some of us are lobbying to end the war in Iraq, the war on poverty and the war on rising gas prices, others of us are locked in a different kind of war, one that would have in its sights a campaign to put a slain civil rights leader in his place. It seems wildly out of step, given all else that plagues the nation.

So in that, the letter-sender gets a certain made-you-look satisfaction. But he or she gets nothing more for his or her anonymous method of spreading race-based opinion, save a bit of attention in this column.

The letter reminded me of the anonymous venom-spewing that followed a three-day series of stories I and another reporter wrote in 1997 about how Roanoke had become the urban mecca for people in need in Southwest Virginia.

A front-page photo on the series' second day was of a young couple from Martinsville. They'd fallen behind in rent, had been evicted from their apartment and were living in their car.

He was black, she was white.

An unsigned letter found its way into my mailbox a few days later.

"What is The Roanoke Times thinking, putting that ape and his whore on the front page," a short, handwritten note screamed.

I kept that letter, along with others of the same, nasty ilk for years, until their symbolic hatred grew old and tired.

Some would argue that by holding on to these rantings I'm doing precisely what people inclined to make the effort want: letting them shake me up, just in case I'd become too comfortable with my own views.

But I still keep a few letters and e-mails around and reflect upon their words when the fire needs a little stoking. As if the daily news didn't provoke sufficient riling.

Listened to Rush last week; heard he'd rolled out a song parody on his show.

"Barack the Magic Negro," it was called.

Taylor is a member of The Roanoke Times editorial board.