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Much has been made of news reports showing that the head of the (CCC) 鈥� the racist group whose website helped radicalize 聽the suspect in the Charleston church massacre 鈥� , including presidential aspirants Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum.

But far more damning has been the support the GOP has given to the CCC over the years.

Despite the group鈥檚 obvious racism, its mainstream political connections run deep. And they鈥檙e not entirely a thing of the past. The white nationalist Kyle Rogers, who operates the CCC website, , South Carolina, as recently as 2013.

That鈥檚 long after the CCC became known publicly as a white supremacist group.

In the mid- to late-1990s, the group boasted of having 34 members who were in the Mississippi legislature and had powerful Republican Party allies, including then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi.

Former Sen. Trent Lott meeting with Council of Conservative Citizens leadership during the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1997.

Most Americans knew little about the CCC until 1998 when it was reported that U.S. Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia had delivered the keynote address at its national convention that year and that Lott had spoken to the group five times. Lott鈥檚 uncle told The New York Times that the senator had been a member for years.

Both Barr and Lott claimed to know virtually nothing about the group. But It had, for example, routinely denigrated black people as 鈥済enetically inferior鈥� and accused non-white immigrants of turning America into a 鈥渟limy brown mass of glop.鈥� Its 鈥淧atriot of the Century鈥� was none other than Lester Maddox, the arch-segregationist former governor of Georgia.

Reacting to the scandal, from the group because of its 鈥渞acist views.鈥� He said members 鈥渙f the party of Lincoln should not belong to such an organization.鈥�

But, following the uproar, even as the group began to abandon its pretense of being a mainstream conservative organization and became more openly racist, politicians continued to associate with it. In 2003, South Carolina state treasurer , a Democrat, was photographed with the CCC鈥檚 state chair in his office, and the group claimed to have played a 鈥渟ignificant role鈥� in his re-election.

In 2004, who were still in office, the vast majority of them Republicans, had attended CCC events in the previous four years. The roster included Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who had earlier served as chair of the Republican National Committee, and 23 Mississippi state legislators.

In 2013, scandal erupted in South Carolina when it was reported that a Tea Party activist and longtime national and state GOP political operative, was a lifetime member and board member of the CCC. Garcia-Quintana had been named to the steering committee for Gov. Nikki Haley鈥檚 re-election campaign.

Joining the long succession of politicians caught cozying up to the CCC, Garcia-Quintana even though the group鈥檚 website has referred to black people as 鈥渁 retrograde species of humanity.鈥� Despite the claim of ignorance, Haley鈥檚 camp quickly cut him loose from its committee.

Three years earlier, the CCC had been part of a movement, along with the Sons of Confederate Veterans, to flying atop South Carolina鈥檚 State House, the only Capitol where it still flew. In the end, the flag was removed from the State House to a spot nearby on the grounds.

It鈥檚 no secret that the GOP has long pandered to racist elements in the Deep South 鈥� exploiting white racial resentments to transform the region into a reliable Republican voting bloc in the decades after the end of Jim Crow.

Lee Atwater, who grew up in South Carolina and become a key party strategist during the Reagan-Bush era, in 1981 launched by Nixon and continued by Reagan: 鈥淵ou start out in 1954 by saying, 鈥楴-----, n-----, n-----.鈥� By 1968 you can鈥檛 say 鈥榥-----鈥� 鈥� that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states鈥� rights and all that stuff.鈥�

The key to understanding the CCC鈥檚 appeal in the Deep South is its history as part of the political resistance to the civil rights movement: It鈥檚 the modern-day reincarnation of the old White Citizens Councils that sprang up in Southern states to fight school desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s. The councils 鈥� known as the 鈥渦ptown Klan鈥� because they had the same goals as the Klan but didn鈥檛 engage in terrorism and maintained a veneer of respectability 鈥� drew in many prominent segregationists who supported Jim Crow. 聽

From its birth, the St. Louis-based CCC was led by , who had been a political supporter of in his bid to become governor of Louisiana. Baum, who died this past March at 74, helped form the CCC in 1985 by using old mailing lists from the White Citizens Councils, for whom he had been the Midwest field organizer. Baum鈥檚 successor, Earl Holt, is the leader named by The Guardian as contributing to GOP candidates.

According to a manifesto on Dylann Storm Roof鈥檚 website, CCC propaganda was 聽his entry point into the world of hard-core racism. On its website, he found warnings about 聽鈥渨hite genocide,鈥� incendiary claims about black-on-white crime, and talk of South Africa. The patches he wore on his jacket, including the flag of the former South African apartheid regime, and the words he uttered during his murderous rampage 鈥� his claim that black people were 鈥渢aking over our country鈥� and 鈥渞ap[ing] our women鈥� 鈥� come straight from the .

Most Americans would no doubt recoil at the ugly racism espoused by the CCC. But it would be a mistake to think that this extremist organization lurks only at the extreme fringe of American society. Historically, mainstream politicians in the Deep South, including in South Carolina, have given it a legitimacy it doesn鈥檛 deserve.