Williams resigns as Tea Party Express spokesman

[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/06/19/art.mwilliams0619.gi.jpg caption ="Mark Williams has resigned as the spokesman of the Tea Party Express."] Washington (CNN) – Tea Party Express spokesman and former chairman Mark Williams has resigned his post, the group said Friday in a statement.

Last week Williams penned an inflammatory blog post that erupted into a national controversy and fueled debate about the Tea Party movement and racism. Williams later defended the post as satire.

"The media coverage over a recent satirical posting on my personal MarkTalk.com blog risks injuring the Tea Party Express, the tea party movement as a whole, and the people in this movement who I respect and admire so much," Williams said in resignation letter released Friday. "It has become increasingly unacceptable that the media and our domestic enemies continue to anoint me as the official voice of a massively diverse and broad-based movement."

Williams wrote the incendiary blog post in response to an NAACP resolution that called on Tea Party leaders to crack down on racist elements in the movement.

"Dear Mr. Lincoln," began the fictional letter posted by Williams. "We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!"

Williams went on to write that the Tea Party movement couldn't be racist because it opposed government bailouts for Wall Street banks and big corporations.

"Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn't that what we want all Coloreds to strive for?" the posting said. "What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bailouts directly to us coloreds!"

The National Tea Party Federation, an organization that seeks to represent the Tea Party political movement around the country, expelled Williams and his Tea Party Express organization because of the post Sunday.

In his letter of resignation, Williams said he will continue to advocate for Tea Party issues, but will no longer be associated with the Tea Party Express because his association with the group has become a liability.

"We are in a war for the future of this country and the Left and their allies in the news media have decided to use my personal comments and views as a weapon to injure the Tea Party movement and conservative activists. I will simply not allow them to do this," Williams said.

Williams resigned as chairman of the group in June.