Death of a racist is difficult to mourn

You may not remember the name Samuel Bowers, but you know the story. Bowers was the former Ku Klux Klan imperial wizard who will go down in history as one of the darker characters in the legacy of the South. Bowers was an unrepentant racist who ordered the execution of three civil rights workers made famous in the movie "Mississippi Burning." He served prison time for his role in those murders and was currently serving a life sentence for the 1966 firebombing of another civil rights leader.

Bowers was 82 when he died Sunday in a Mississippi prison.

Bowers embodied the worst of the worst. He came from another era and thankfully was part of a rapidly dying breed. He never apologized for his actions nor asked for forgiveness.

It took the state of Mississippi over 30 years to bring final justice to Bowers. Two earlier trials failed to convict him but in 1998, Bowers' ruthlessness finally came to an end.

Though time may never fully heal the wounds inflicted by Bowers and his fellow KKK associates, some credit goes to those who persisted over three decades to find justice. You can successfully argue that it took far too long to bring this demon to a court of reckoning. But that argument aside, at least there was that day of justice and now Samuel Bowers will face another court of justice.

I suspect there remain some Sam Bowers out among the population. But the era that spawned Bowers and his kind has surely moved into the history books.

We're told the mourn the loss of any life. But it's difficult to reason that Samuel Bowers deserves any mourning or recognition or regret. He was clearly a product of a different time and his death will bring the ultimate justice.