One day after defending a segregationist group, Haley Barbour is now defending himself. The former Mississippi Republican Governor today backtracked on controversial comments he made in The Weekly Standard. He released this statement:

"When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns' integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn't tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the "Citizens Council," is totally indefensible, as is segregation. It was a difficult and painful era for Mississippi, the rest of the country, and especially African Americans who were persecuted in that time."

You can read his original remarks in full here. When asked about for his take the civil rights struggle in Yazoo City, Mississippi, he said "I just don't remember it being that bad."

Tonight, we'll be talking about these comments on race in the old South. Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and Matt Cooper, White House Managing Editor for the National Journal, joins us at 10pm ET.

Will this kill any chance of Barbour getting on the GOP ticket in 2012? Please tell us in the comment section below.