"We grew up, and Jesse believed it too way back then, that God was that old man with the long beard, and he had a chair up over the Grubb Building in Salisbury, seven stories high, and was watching me, and was gonna punish me if I did anything wrong.  And you couldn't dance and you couldn't drink any alcoholic drinks, and playing cards, ooh, that was the worst sin in the world."

Ray House was principal of Monroe High School from 1932 to 1944, which included the years Jesse Helms was a student. "Next to my own father, he made a greater impression on me than anybody else," Helms said. "I had a stock sermon that I always preached to them,” House said of his former students. "Hard work, honesty, caring for others, being the first one on the job and the last one to leave, and you'd have two cars in you garage. Of course, none of them believed that because no one had a car period." 

"I think having Mr. Jesse for a father, [Jesse Helms] didn’t get into anything because he knew if he got into it he got twice the punishment anybody else would have gotten because his daddy expected him to do right."

Walter Love recalled of his Monroe classmate Jesse Helms, "He took with him a desire to achieve, to be good, to do what you can, the best you can, from Mr. House…who was his mentor until he died."

Larry Sabato
Political Scientist and Director,
University of Virginia's Center for Politics

"Jesse Helms is actually the model for the active political American, that one person can not only make a difference, but can help to change the philosophy and direction and ideology of an entire continental nation. Whether you like him or dislike him, whether you like or dislike his philosophy, he was at the heart of the conservative movement that changed America from the 1970s to today."

Larry J. Sabato is Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia and founder and director of the University’s Center for Politics. He has written over twenty books and countless essays on the American political process.

Using Roll Call Votes Against Liberals:

"He was determined to get more people like him elected to the U.S. Senate, and that meant getting senators on the record about controversial issues. So he helped to require roll call votes on the toughest issues. Then he and his fellow New Right activists would use those issues and those votes to create television and radio ads and direct mail letters and defeat the senators who had cast liberal votes."

Reveling In His Enemies:

"Jesse Helms was proud of the fact that he never got more than 55 percent of the vote.  He always got between 52 and 55 percent. He wanted to be opposed by a large portion of the population. Not half, but a large portion. He reveled in his enemies."

Using Jesse Jackson:

"Helms was able to use Jackson as a symbol for what rural North Carolinians most disliked about the Democratic party-- the image Democrats had at the time of being too quote 'pro-black,' too tied to constituency special interests and not standing up for the average working guy in North Carolina."

Opposing MLK Holiday:

"Opposing the Martin Luther King holiday helped Jesse Helms substantially. If he had voted for the Martin Luther King holiday, very few moderates and certainly no liberals would have voted for Jesse Helms, so he would have gained nothing in terms of votes.  But by voting against it, he stirred up his conservative base. They said, 'Right on, Jesse,' and they produced even more than they would have otherwise for him in getting out the vote, contributing money and all the rest."

Vann Secrest
Jesse Helms's Childhood Classmate

“He was very reluctant to be quiet until he got his way, and that’s what he usually got.”

"He was quite tall then for his age," Vann Secrest remembered of his Monroe classmate Jesse Helms, "and he lifted his leg very high when he strutted as drum major. I think he relished being in control, and that’s not a bad thing. Somebody’s got to take the responsibility and he was willing to do it."

Richard Viguerie
Helms Political Consultant and Fundraiser

"It all changed, election night November 1980. The Left woke up and said, 'Oh, my gosh. They have, while we weren’t paying attention, built a conservative movement here.'"   

A pioneer in the use of computerized direct mail, Richard Viguerie raised millions for Senator Jesse Helms, The Congressional Club, and other conservative causes. Labeled the "funding father" of the modern conservative movement, Viguerie founded Conservative Digest magazine in 1975 and served as its publisher for 10 years.  Viguerie’s books include Conservatives Betrayed: How the Republican Party Hijacked the Conservative Cause and America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power.

Contributors Remaining Politically Involved:

"The person who gave them a dollar today would actually give them 50 or 100 dollars over the next 10 or 20 years.  Then also the people who sent donations would be educating their neighbors. We would be sending them fact-filled letters urging them to speak out, to write to legislators, congressmen and senators, write letters to the editor and call talk show hosts, just get politically involved."

The New Right Taking Over the Republican Party:

"We thought different. We saw ourselves as the future leaders of this country, and we knew that if we stayed the course and worked hard and smart, that conservatives–if not us, those who came after us--would come to power and govern America…. Once we realized we had to work with the Republican Party--there was not going to be a third party, a serious third-party movement, and we were serious--we weren’t interested in being a minor irritant to those who were leading the country. We wanted to have the opportunity to govern, and so we decided, 'Well, we’ll just buckle up, suck it up, and go out there and take over the Republican Party.'"  

A Three-Legged Stool:

"And then in 1980, you really saw it full bore.  Instead of getting 45, 48 percent of the vote, conservatives bringing the religious, social issue conservatives together with the economic and foreign policy, national defense conservatives, now we begin to be a majority and getting 51, 55 percent of the vote. And to this day, the Republican party is like a three-legged stool--economic issues, national defense and social issues--and without those three legs of that stool, Republicans are not going to be able to win elections."