Mother Jones: Civil rights credentials of NOM's antigay African-American hood ornament, Rev. William Owens, may be largely bogus

Antigay African-American political opportunist Rev. Bill Owens is on the take of the National Organization for Marriage, which was embarrassed recently (if that's possible) over disclosure of secret memos detailing its plan to pit black and gay Democrats against each other. USA Today documents Owens' longstanding ties to conservative Republican groups. Michael Cottman says Owens is slandering Obama. And Adam Serwer of Mother Jones says Owens may have little if any credibility as a "fighter" for civil rights in the 50s and 60s:

With his backstory as an activist at the center of the fight for civil rights, Owens would seem to be the perfect messenger. "I was a leader in the civil rights movement in Nashville from 1958 to '59 and 1960," Owens told Mother Jones. "We organized from dorm to dorm, from school to school, and went around training students how to sit in, and how to be an activist, what to do." Nashville's sit-ins played a particularly important role in the civil rights struggle, pioneering non-violent tactics that were adopted by the broader movement.
     But surviving leaders of the Nashville civil rights movement, who spoke with Mother Jones, have no recollection of Owens. Rev. C.T. Vivian, an ally of Martin Luther King Jr. who helped organize the Nashville sit-ins and who is now president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said he did not recall crossing paths with Owens. Rev. James Lawson, the famed practitioner of non-violence who trained the sit-in activists, did not remember Owens either. The same goes for Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), one of the major student leaders in the Nashville sit-in movement who went on to lead the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. 

Below: Owens can get quite arrogant and combative when his assertions are questioned in the slightest. (Via Good As You.)