More than 50 years after the historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision, most public schools in Richmond -- and in other urban inner-cities all across America -- remain racially, economically and woefully segregated. Jonathon Kozol, a noted national expert on public education and the author of several books, believes that, "It's not just that they are segregated -- they're absolutely segregated. I never see white children. If you took of the typical class that I visit in any of our major inner cities, that photograph would look exactly like a photograph of a class of black kids in Mississippi 50 years ago."
Clearly, Richmond is not unique in this regard. But, it is singular in that our city was once the "Capital of The Confederacy," the "birthplace of "Massive Resistance," home to attorney Hill, who with the help of a team of NAACP lawyers tirelessly filed more lawsuits challenging segregation than any other team. When students in Prince Edward County walked out of school to protest the separate and not equal schools, Hill and his law partners took the case which eventually became part of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
Significantly, Richmond was also the home of James J. Kilpatrick, a fiery editorial page editor who relentlessy championed segregationist "Massive Resistance" on the editorial pages of the now-defunct Richmond News Leader. He did so at the behest of his patrician publisher, D. Tennant Bryan and former Governor and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd. Their goal was to maintain segregated schools and in so doing, challenge the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court's nine-to-nothing decision.
Kilpatrick used a massive editorial campaign to resurrect the old Constitutional doctrine of “interposition,” which holds that a state can protect its people from the Federal Government if the U.S. government attempts to violate the people's fundamental rights.
His editorial efforts, coupled with Byrd's prodigious politiking skills bolstered by "The Byrd Machine,"and Bryan's barrels of ink and printing presses, helped persuade the members of the Virginia General Assembly to adopt an “Interposition Resolution,” which “pledged the assembly's intent to resist by every means available the federal government's encroachment upon Virginia 's sovereign powers, and urged its sister states to do likewise.”
Byrd, the most powerful political boss in Virginia, declared a campaign of “massive resistance” against the Brown decision. Byrd plays a key role in the creation of the “Southern Manifesto,” a document which is signed by 101 southern congressmen, including both Virginia senators and all 10 of the states representatives.
The Manifesto declared that Brown is a “clear abuse of judicial power,” and its signers pledged “to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision.”
Byrd, Governor Stanley issued the “Stanley Plan,” which was yet another attempt to halt integration in Virginia. The Stanley Plan established a three member, governor-appointed “Pupil Placement Board,” which will stall integration by separating whites and blacks in public schools. It also empowered the governor to close any integrated public schools in the state.
When political leaders like Byrd of Virginia advocated closing schools to avoid school desegregation, Jonathan Daniels of the Raleigh News & Observer declared that closing schools might be worse even than what had befallen the nation during the Civil War. Because closing schools, he said, was something "beyond secession from the Union. It was, he said, secession from civilization."
And, whereas, Hill and the civil rights movement can legitimately claim ideological high ground and victory for outlawing de jure segregation in our nation's public schools, Kilpatrick and the "Massive Resistance" have prevailed on the front-line of a ground war to keep segregation alive.
Consequently, the biggest change in public education since the 1954 Brown decision is that our nation has replaced de jure segregation with de facto segregation. Thurgood Marshall's quote ...
News coverage of Kilpatrick's recent death at age 89 brought a spate of news stories and editorials about the crumudgeonly "Kilpo"." Most national newspapers bid Kilpatrick a kind and tender farewell. The obituaries and news stories focused on his post-Richmond career as a prolific national conservative columnist, author and pundit who appeared regularly on television news programs, most notably "60 Minutes."
Apparently, as far as many journalists and politicians today are concerned, Kilpatrick's segregationist views and the murky madness that was Massive Resistance is a tale best forgotten. Many appear to have been listening to the refrain of old Confederate marching song "Dixieland" -- Look Away, Look Away! -- while writing stories that either failed to mention entirely or significantly discounted the significance of the segregationist Massive Resistance movement.
To be sure, no moral courage is required to beat up and blame an old, dead man for something that happened more than 50 years ago. But, it does take an abundance of audacious amnesia for the editors and publishers of the Richmond Times-Dispatch to attempt to place the bulk of the blame and shame of Massive Resistance squarely on Kilpatrick's shoulders and his "Pen of Fire."
What makes the RT-D's attempt to blame it all on Kilpatrick particulary shameful is the reality is that no one man -- no matter how eloquent, passionate or powerful -- could have singlehandedly managed to spew the hateful, racist vitriol of Black people and of the federal government that Kilpatrick's relentless editorials did had he not done so at the behest of, and with the blessings of, powerful individuals in government, business and the press.
Not only did the RT-D fail to fully disclose the identities of the guilty parties, but unfortunately, The New York Times didn't deign to tell readers that Kilpatrick and D. Tennant Bryan, owner and publisher of Richmond Newspapers, worked hand-in-glove with former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd in taking a hardline stand in favor of segregation.
The Washington Post waited until the sixth paragraph of its story to mention "Massive Resistance" and Harry F. Byrd. Even Garrett Epps, writing for The Atlantic Monthly as a son of Richmond and someone who grew up reading Kilpatrick and witnessing first-hand the power of Kilpo's words, didn't mention Byrd, the Byrd Machine or anything about the publisher who paid Kilpatrick to bang the drum day-after-day in favor of Massive Resistance and the necessity of maintaining segregation.
The Wall Street Journal hailed him as a "Courtly Warrior for Conservatism" and totally ignored any examination of what "the warrior's words" did in the Commonwealth of Virginia or the nation. And, truth be told here, neither Kilpatrick nor the Richmond Newspapers have ever really apologized. Kilpatrick said he realized too late that the views he held were wrong, wrong, wrong. But, he never apologized.
But, then again, those other newspapers were not the editorial birthplace of Massive Resistance, nor did they promote the pro-segregationist defiance of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision with quite the incessant fervor and fire that Richmond newspapers did.
Never mind that Kilpatrick willingly did the bidding and intellectual heavy lifting for D. Tennant Bryan, former publisher and owner of BOTH The Richmond News Leader and The Richmond Times-Dispatch. Kilpatrick was known as "Southern journalism's most articulate voice for segregation." He even wrote a book that was published in 1962 while he was still employed at Richmond Newspapers: "The Southern case for Segregation."
Never mind that Bryan and the top brass at Richmond Newspapers at the time were all in cahoots with the senior Senator from Virginia, Harry F. Byrd. Byrd coined the term and with the help of Bryan and Kilpatrick, they pushed the state down the road of "massive resistance" and school closings — a sad and embarrassing chapter of Virginia history.
The RT-D's prefunctory and weak "We regret..." statement fails to convince when it is followed by a comment noting that had it not been for Massive Resistance, Kilpatrick (and Richmond newspapers) would have won a Pulitzer Prize. To be sure, there were courageous newspapermen in the South who stood against Massive Resistance and segregation and who did earn Pulitzer Prizes for their work, men like Lenoir Chambers, Ralph McGill, Gene Patterson, Harry Ashmore, Jonathan Daniels, Hodding Carter.
The difference between apology and regret is important. The definition of the the word apology includes an admission of error or wrongdoing on one's part. Regret merely expresses a desire that the event had not happened, without any acceptance of wrongdoing on one part.
To be sure, an apology would not appreciably alter the facts of this shameful and sorrowful saga that not only harmed Richmond, the Commonwealth of Virginia, but the entire nation and the souls of countless individuals and their families who will forever be marked by what happened in Virginia during those years.
Massive Resistance produced racial intolerance, bitterness, and, in the case of Prince Edward County, schoolchildren who were denied education for five years, a lost generation. Commenting on Byrd's leadership, political scientist V. O. Key stated, "Men with the minds of tradesmen do not become statesmen."
In his classic 1949 study, Southern Politics in State and Nation, V. O. Key characterized the organization as an oligarchy in which power was maintained by a remarkably small portion of the electorate. Fewer people voted in Virginia than in any other southern state, with only 10 or 12 percent of adults casting votes during the heyday of the Byrd Organization. This meant that the organization needed the support of only 5 to 7 percent of the voting-age population to control party nominations, which nearly guaranteed election in most districts in most elections.
"By contrast," Key memorably wrote, "Mississippi is a hotbed of democracy."
and it was Bryan who allowed his newspapers to be used as a bully pulpit for the Byrd Machine's efforts to maintain segregation and use Massive Resistance to defy a nine-to-nothing decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. Never mind that Bryan paid Kilpatrick to use his considerable talent to trumpet the notion of "Interposition" and to foment support for Massive Resistance, segregation and racial hatred. There is voluminous evidence of this stored in the archives of the Virginia State Library.
The editorial page noted that Kilpatrick's "reputation always will be linked to Massive Resistance," which it described as "Virginia’s attempt to evade the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling outlawing segregated schools. In the fight against Brown v. Board of Education, Kilpatrick disinterred "interposition," a doctrine previously associated primarily with the slave-holding South."
The editorial further acknowledged that "The campaign against desegregation inflicted considerable harm on the commonwealth. Virginia relied not only on the open defiance of Massive Resistance but on the subterfuge of "Freedom of Choice." The scars have not healed, as the fierceness of the state’s debates regarding school choice suggest. In Virginia, perhaps more than in any other state, charter schools, vouchers, and the like carry nasty connotations."
Kilpatrick promoted Massive Resistance on the editorial pages of The News Leader. The Times-Dispatch inherited the legacy when the papers merged in 1992. In an editorial published last year, The Times-Dispatch expressed its regret for Massive Resistance and the injuries it caused. A persistent absence of empathy strains relations among humanity. Let us instead be kindly affectioned, one to another. Journalism courses regarding the real-world consequences of writing should cite Kilpatrick’s career."
And, in so doing, those journalism courses should also cite the details of the politically incestuous relationship that existed between former Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd and the Bryan Family, owners and publishers both the RT-D and the now-defunct Richmond News Leader."
The RT-D's prefunctory and weak "regret" fails to convince when it is followed by a comment noting that had it not been for Massive Resistance, Kilpatrick (and Richmond newspapers) would have won a Pulitzer Prize. To be sure, there were courageous reporters and editors in the South who stood against Massive Resistance and segregation and who did earn Pulitzer Prizes for their work, men like Lenoir Chambers, Ralph McGill, Gene Patterson, Harry Ashmore, Jonathan Daniels, Hodding Carter. To read more about them, click here.
Similarly, the best that the Virginia General Assembly could manage was its own weak statement of "regret" in the wake of the harm and hate it countenanced by going along with Harry F. Byrd, the late former U.S. Senator and former Virginia Governor who championed segregation just as surely as George Wallace, Ross Barnett or Orville Fabus did.
To be sure, an apology would not appreciably alter the facts of this shameful and sorrowful saga that not only harmed Richmond, the Commonwealth of Virginia, but the entire nation and the souls of countless individuals and their families who will forever be marked by what happened in Virginia during those years.
The reality is that no one man -- no matter how eloquent, passionate or powerful -- could have singlehandedly managed to spew the hateful, racist vitriol of Black people and of the federal government that Kilpatrick's relentless editorials accomplished had he not done so at the behest of, and with the blessings of, powerful individuals in government, business and the press.
But, The New York Times didn't tell readers that Kilpatrick and D. Tennant Bryan, owner and publisher of Richmond Newspapers, were in cahoots with former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd in taking a hardline stand in favor of segregation. The Washington Post waited until the sixth paragraph of its story to mention "Massive Resistance" and Harry F. Byrd. Even Garrett Epps, writing for The Atlantic Monthly as a son of Richmond who grew up reading Kilpatrick and witnessing the power of Kilpo's words, didn't mention Byrd, the Byrd Machine or anything about the publisher who paid Kilpatrick to bang the drum day-after-day in favor of Massive Resistance and the necessity of maintaining segregation.
By simply conceding that it was "complicit" and by not fully disclosing the details of the politically incestuous relationship that existed between former Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd and the Bryan Family, owners and publishers both the RT-D and the now-defunct Richmond News Leader, the policy-makers at today's RT-D essentially blamed Kilpatrick for the turmoil that ensued after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision on May 17, 1954.
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, I ask you to consider marking that anniversary with an official apology for your role in trumpeting the notion of "Interposition" and your campaign on behalf of "Massive Resistance."
Face the facts. During your tenure as editorial page editor at The Richmond News-Leader, you used your position as a bully pulpit and you used your considerable talent as a writer to foment support for Massive Resistance, segregation and racial hatred. There is voluminous evidence of this stored in the archives of the Virginia State Library.
Fact. You gave voice and comfort to the ugliest of passions and prejudices. You have never acknowledged your true role in this shameful saga nor have you ever apologized to the many people who were hurt by your reckless ambition and hateful defiance of a nine-to-nothing decision handed down by the United States Supreme Court, the highest court in this, the greatest nation in the world.
Fact. The article you wrote nearly a year ago in the wake of the Strom Thurmond/Trent Lott political blood-letting was nothing more than a sentimental and solipsistic exercise to whitewash your personal and professional history. That piece, "My Journey from Racism" which appeared on Dec. 22, 2002 in The Atlanta Journal - Constitution, is filled with half-truths and the maudlin maunderings of one who has (incredibly) never apologized for the harm he helped create in a city that was once known for its gentility and kindness.
Fact. Ample evidence to refute the claims of shame and sorrow you reference in the "My Journey from Racism" article can be found on the pages of "The Southern Case for School Segregation," a book that you -- James Jackson Kilpatrick --authored and published by the Crowell-Collier Press in 1962.
Fact. You were a young man and you used -- and were used by -- political leaders to promote racism and hatred, the very same "values" that ultimately brought shame and infamy upon the reputations of Strom Thurmond, Lester Maddox, Ross Barnett, George Wallace and, yes, Harry Byrd himself..
I ask that you find the moral courage to be "a man in full" and admit that you were wrong. The 50th anniversary of the Brown decision presents a perfect opportunity for you to repudiate your former segregationist stance and to acknowledge the moral evolution of public values away from segregation and racism. A by-lined commentary by you that would apologize for Massive Resistance -- and the pain it begat -- would be seen as a kind, decent, powerful and, ultimately, healing gesture.
Unlike Kilpatrick, who was not a native Virgininian, Byrd and the Bryan Family could not abandon their roots and seek their fortunes and futures elsewhere. Long after Kilpatrick moved to Washington, D.C. from Richmond, Va., where he reportedly left behind the segregationist stances he so passionately embraced, Richmond Newspapers continued to fight against integration and to rail against implementation of Brown vs. Board of Education.On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the landmark
Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, I ask you to consider marking that anniversary with an official apology for your role in trumpeting the notion of "Interposition" and your campaign on behalf of "Massive Resistance."
Face the facts. During your tenure as editorial page editor at The Richmond News-Leader, you used your position as a bully pulpit and you used your considerable talent as a writer to foment support for Massive Resistance, segregation and racial hatred. There is voluminous evidence of this stored in the archives of the Virginia State Library.
Fact. You gave voice and comfort to the ugliest of passions and prejudices. You have never acknowledged your true role in this shameful saga nor have you ever apologized to the many people who were hurt by your reckless ambition and hateful defiance of a nine-to-nothing decision handed down by the United States Supreme Court, the highest court in this, the greatest nation in the world.
Fact. The article you wrote nearly a year ago in the wake of the Strom Thurmond/Trent Lott political blood-letting was nothing more than a sentimental and solipsistic exercise to whitewash your personal and professional history. That piece, "My Journey from Racism" which appeared on Dec. 22, 2002 in The Atlanta Journal - Constitution, is filled with half-truths and the maudlin maunderings of one who has (incredibly) never apologized for the harm he helped create in a city that was once known for its gentility and kindness.
Fact. Ample evidence to refute the claims of shame and sorrow you reference in the "My Journey from Racism" article can be found on the pages of "The Southern Case for School Segregation," a book that you -- James Jackson Kilpatrick --authored and published by the Crowell-Collier Press in 1962.
Fact. You were a young man and you used -- and were used by -- political leaders to promote racism and hatred, the very same "values" that ultimately brought shame and infamy upon the reputations of Strom Thurmond, Lester Maddox, Ross Barnett, George Wallace and, yes, Harry Byrd himself..I ask that you find the moral courage to be "a man in full" and admit that you were wrong. The 50th anniversary of the Brown decision presents a perfect opportunity for you to repudiate your former segregationist stance and to acknowledge the moral evolution of public values away from segregation and racism. A by-lined commentary by you that would apologize for Massive Resistance -- and the pain it begat -- would be seen as a kind, decent, powerful and, ultimately, healing gesture.
Most of what I know about Kilpatrick, I learned from old newspaper articles, history books and from my friend and mentor, the late Oliver W. Hill. Mr. Hill who once told me that in order to understand the genesis of the ongoing and omnipresent racial tensions in Richmond that I should never forget that Massive Resistance failed by only one vote in the Virginia General Assembly, and that the vote came from a legislator who arrived on a hospital gurney.
Hill was one of the NAACP lawyers who helped bring the Brown case to the U.S. Supreme Court. (We first met because his granddaughter and my daughter were in the second-grade together and liked to play at one another's homes). Blinded by a series of mini-strokes in later life, Mr. Hill allowed me to read to him several afternoons a week. During those visits, we discussed a wide range of topics -- the law, justice, education, politics, evolution, race relations in Richmond, the Bryan Family that owned both the Richmond Times Dispatch and the Richmond News Leader and, of course, Kilpatrick's relentless efforts on behalf of Massive Resistance. Massive Resistance damaged Richmond, Virginia and the nation.
During the summer of 2003, we decided to contact Kilpatrick via e-mail after reading a column he wrote that appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution in December 2002. Our goal was simply to ask Kilpatrick to apologize officially for his segregationist views and his role in Massive Resistance. Our hope was that he would, given what he said in the column, the passage of time and the impending 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. The text of those e-mails follows:
****
Subj: Re: Mr. Oliver W. Hill
Date: 6/24/2003 11:51:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: WOLFIES
To: Kilpatjj
Dear Mr. Kilpatrick:
I write to request a most important courtesy. I consider myself blessed to be able to call Oliver W. Hill my friend. I do not know if you are aware that Mr. Hill, who turned 96 on May 1, is blind now. Despite his blindness, Mr. Hill's mind is still sharp and he continues to possess more vision than most of the rest of us. He lives a few short blocks from my home in Ginter Park and I derive great pleasure from reading to him as many afternoons a week as I can manage.
Mr. Hill and I have discussed you and your efforts on behalf of Massive Resistance on many occasions. I once asked him if you had ever repudiated your racist past or apologized for your words that hurt so many so deeply, powerful words that continue to hurt both the citizens of Richmond and the city itself.
Ever the lawyer, Mr. Hill laughed and said, "Not to my knowledge."
"But, Mr. Hill," I responded, "even George Wallace apologized. The Pope has apologized."
"Yes," he answered, "but, they are not James J. Kilpatrick."
Mr. Kilpatrick, if you could find a few words to express to Mr. Hill some of the sentiments reflected in the attached column, it would give me profound pleasure to read them to him. I hesitate to ask for an apology, given the glib gibberish that liberals and conservatives mutter these days when caught with their political pants down.
I ask instead for some words that could be shared between two old warriors that would reflect the sort of wisdom that only comes with the passage of time. Such a courtesy would be a most gracious and healing gesture.
Sincerely,
Carol Wolf
Subj: Re: Mr. Oliver W. Hill
Date: 6/24/2003 12:01:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Kilpatjj
To: WOLFIES
Dear Ms. Wolf --
I had clean forgotten that 1989 column, but of course I would reaffirm my argument today. By coincidence, I just reaffirmed it in a column I e-mailed to my Syndicate an hour ago -- a column deriding the racial discrimination just upheld by the Supreme Court in the Grutter opinion yesterday. Quite recently, in a piece for the Atlanta Journal & Constitution, I said the same things -- that I repudiated the segregationist views that I grew up with.
Please convey the substance of this note to Mr. Hill. I remember him as a splendid adversary. I am sorry to learn of his infirmities.
Sincerely,
James J. Kilpatrick
Subj: Re: "Splendid Adversary"
Date: 6/25/2003 8:17:24 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: WOLFIES
To: Kilpatjj
Dear Mr. Kilpatrick --
Thank you for your prompt response to my e-mail.
I would be happy to read your column I sent along earlier to Mr. Hill. I had hoped, however, for a more personal response directed to Mr. Hill, that "splendid adversary" you remember from your heydays in Richmond. At ages 82 and 96 respectively, you and Mr. Hill are amazing. A letter from you would have far deeper meaning than any column I could read or any message I might extrapolate and convey from your response to me.
If you are disinclined to write a personal note to Mr. Hill, perhaps you might consider writing an opinion piece for the Richmond Times-Dispatch that would repudiate your views on segregation and Massive Resistance? Our city suffers still from the twin legacies of the Confederacy and Massive Resistance coupled with an omnipresent racial anxieties that have long reined back Richmond's slow stroll into to the future.
A letter from you to Mr. Hill acknowledging that segregation and racial discrimination were and remain wrong today would be seen as a gracious and decent gesture from a man capable of acknowledging past wrongs and admitting to a blindness brought on by prejudice instilled at an early age.
Mr. Hill, that "splendid adversary" of your youth remains a fine and noble man today, a man who has devoted his life to battling racism and all its evil progeny. For the record, Mr. Hill sees his blindness not so much as an infirmity, but more as an unfortunate annoyance.
Should you care to proffer an apology, you and Mr. Hill are of a generation that apprehends and appreciates the true meaning of such a gesture. My prayer is that if you can change your views, others may be similarly inspired and as a society we can move ever closer to that time when, as you wrote in 1989: "There would be no black schools or white schools; there would be ' just schools.' Persons of every race would be treated equally before the law."
Sincerely,
Carol Wolf
P.s. I am astounded that as devoted a Whig Party man as you are, you did not weigh in on the recent controversy concerning the permanent placement of a monument of Abraham Lincoln and his son in Richmond. Lincoln, you will recall, was once a steadfast Whig. CW
Subj: Ulysses & Thee
Date: 6/26/2003 3:02:43 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: WOLFIES
To: Kilpatjj
Mr. Kilpatrick:
I hope you have had time to consider my request concerning a note/letter to Mr. Hill and/or a column for the Richmond Times-Dispatch discussing the evolution of your views on racism and segregation. ....
I pray that you can accommodate my request on behalf of Mr. Hill and the citizens of Richmond. Had I not run across your 1989 column I would not have broached this subject with you. In the ways that matter most, you and Mr. Hill are more alike than you are different. You are each blessed with fine minds and you are each fearless. Right down to the marrow of your bones.
Let me give you an example. Having known Mr. Hill for the past 19 years, I approached him last spring to see if I could enlist his help in persuading his son to run for school board. He laughed at the idea and said there was no way "Duke" would do it given the saga of the Hill family and public education in this city.
"But, Mr. Hill," I protested, "what are we going to do? We can't just sit back and let the guy who has the seat now cakewalk his way back in. I've tried for the past two years to find someone to run and I've hit a brickwall."
Mr. Hill sat there -- totally silent -- for a long moment.
"Well, we don't need to worry about finding someone to run," he said at last.
Then, it was my turn to be silent.
Finally, I took a deep breath, got my courage up.
"Sir, you are 95 years old. Are you sure you're up for this race?"
Mr. Hill burst out laughing.
"Not me," he said pointing at me, "You."
"I don't think that would work, Mr. Hill."
"Why not?"
"Sir, you and I both know that you're blind now, right?"
"And, what does that have to do with anything?" he asked, a hint of irritation in his voice.
"Well, Mr.Hill, you do remember that I'm white, right?"
"Of course," he answered.
"Don't you think it would be better if we could find a black candidate to run?"
"Nope. I've known you for the past 18-19 years. I know where your head and your heart are . . . when are we ever going to get beyond this? The fact that you're white is all the more reason for you to run, plus you've not shut up once talking about the schools in all the time that I've known you."
* * *
I am happy to report that not only did I run, Mr. Kilpatrick, but I won. Mr. Hill endorsed me over both the incumbent, a white male architect and the other challenger, a black female lawyer whose grandfather had been a popular preacher here. He wrote a letter to voters, spoke on my behalf at the NAACP and at the Richmond Crusade for Voters, made telephone calls.
To be sure, Mr. Hill was criticized by some for endorsing a white candidate over a black candidate. I am sure you well know that your "splendid adversary" did not let any of that bother him. I love the story he tells about the time the Klan burned a cross in his front yard. When a neighbor asked if he was going to call the police, Mr. Hill cooly replied, "No, the police don't know anything about putting out a fire. I'm calling the fire department."
Mr. Hill and I are doing our level best to help our city and citizens move closer to the day when we will have a truly colorblind society in which, as you wrote in 1989, "...There would be no black schools or white schools; there would be 'just schools.' Persons of every race would be treated equally before the law."
I thank you for your patience on this matter and I hope to hear from you soon. If I do not, rest assured, I will not trouble you again. I am sending along my favorite Tennyson poem to thank you for your time and in the hope that "Ulysses" might inspire you, as the poem has me, to believe that, "Some work of noble note, may yet be done/Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.....'Tis not too late to seek a newer world."
Sincerely,
Carol Wolf
Subj: Re: Ulysses and Thee
Date: 6/28/2003 6:07:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Kilpatjj
To: WOLFIES
Dear Ms. Wolf --
I have your most recent e-mail at hand. Let me congratulate you on your election. I expect you will find your service stimulating and constructive in many ways.
Let me thank you for sending along that quotation. I remember it well from the death of Dr. Freeman some years ago. It was a favorite of his.
As for an essay of personal repentance, I must beg off. On a related matter:
I cannot recall ever insulting Mr. Hill directly and personally. If he recalls such an offense, of course I will apologize for it.
James J. Kilpatrick
Subj: Hopes and Prayers
Date: 7/10/2003 12:27:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: WOLFIES
To: Kilpatjj
Dear Mr. Kilpatrick --
Thank you once again for responding to my e-mails concerning Mr. Hill and the City of Richmond. I 've been away for my in-laws' annual family reunion--four generations convening for a week in the remote beauty of Nelson County. Hence, the hiatus. I hope you had a pleasant holiday.
Before I left for the family gathering, I visited Mr. Hill and shared our most recent e-mail correspondence. We discussed your willingness to apologize should Mr. Hill believe that you had insulted him either personally or directly. He was, to put it mildly, astonished to learn that you had not only repudiated your past segregationist views, but were willing to apologize to him. I wish you could have seen his face as I read the following from your previously mentioned 1989 column:
When we speak of racism or racial discrimination we are speaking of a course of conduct, whether public or private, in which decisions are made according to the color of one's skin. I know something of racists. I was one. As a man born, bred and brought up in the South, I traveled from boyhood to the Brown decision with the prejudices of a lifetime firmly packed. This was in 1954. I was 33 years old. To my regret it took the better part of 10 years for me to realize that racial discrimination is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Having lived a life in the trenches as a civil rights lawyer, Mr. Hill never allowed himself the luxury of brooding about wounds inflicted in the midst of battle. Still, he wonders how the following statement, which appeared in your book, The Southern Case for Segregation, can be regarded as anything but an insult: "....in terms of values that last, and mean something, and excite universal admiration and respect, what has man gained from the history of the Negro race? The answer, alas, is 'virtually nothing. ' "
Additionally, Mr. Hill notes that your daily championing of "Massive Resistance" on the editorial pages of the now-defunct Richmond News-Leader was a seemingly incessant insult to his intelligence and his integrity. Because of your powerful skills as a writer, your campaign made the struggle to eliminate segregation much more difficult.
Mr. Hill said that, while he appreciates your offer to apologize to him personally, of far greater consequence would be an apology directed to all who experienced the turmoil engendered by the "Massive Resistance" era in Virginia. As the former capital of the Confederacy and birthplace of Massive Resistance against desegregation, Richmond struggles even now to overcome those twin legacies.
Massive Resistance gave voice to the ugliest of passions and prejudices. Although it happened a long time ago, there is still in Richmond a palpable and most painful racial anxiety, similar to a massive bruise that never quite heals, the headache that never really abates.
Mr. Hill believes that your repudiation of your segregationist views and the evolution of your views on race could serve as a catalyst to help Richmond begin to make some much needed progress in race relations. The clinging to past pain has maddeningly reined back this city's slow walk into the future and is a barrier to efforts in both the black and white communities to do what is necessary to revitalize Richmond.
If the former champion of Massive Resistance can change the way he sees the world, then there is hope that others might be similarly inspired. To this end, Mr. Hill hopes that you will allow The Richmond Times-Dispatch to publish the article referenced in your initial response to my query: "My Journey From Racism" that appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Before I close, I must clear up an evident misunderstanding in our last communication. You wrote:
"As for an essay of personal repentance, I must beg off. On a related matter: I cannot recall ever insulting Mr. Hill directly and personally. If he recalls such an offense, of course I will apologize for it." [6/28/2003 6:07:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time]
I'm sorry if you thought I was asking for an essay of "personal repentance." Mr. Hill says that repentance is best kept between man and Maker, and I concur. What I did ask was that you consider writing an essay "discussing the evolution of your views on racism and segregation," [6/26/2003 3:02:43 PM] similar in content and tone to the essay referenced in your response to my initial e-mail.
Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter.
Sincerely,
Carol Wolf
Below is the column I wanted the Richmond Times-Dispatch to Reprint. As of Dec. 17, 2003. I have not heard from Mr. Kilpatrick. Please feel free to telephone me at 804-264-8015 should you wish to discuss the possibility of printing this correspondence. Thank you. Carol Wolf
© The Atlanta Journal - Constitution
Sunday, 12/22/2002
Section: @issue Letter: C Page: 1 Words: 1207
JAMES J. KILPATRICK: My journey from racism
By JAMES J. KILPATRICK/Special
Our nation would have been better off, said Sen. Trent Lott, if it had elected Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond in 1948. We wouldn'thave had all these problems over the years.
It was a stupid thing to say, profoundly wrong, deeply offensive. Lott was endorsing the racial segregation on which Thurmond had based his campaign. By "all these problems," he meant the difficulties experienced by white folks in adjusting to the new realities. The statement ended Lott's usefulness on the national stage --- a reality he finally accepted on Friday, with his resignation as Senate majority leader.
Why did he say what he said? Lott's 534 colleagues in the House and Senate know exactly what happened at Thurmond's birthday party. On one occasion or another, they have been there and done that. The senator was surfboarding on a wave of bonhomie. As Dr. Samuel Johnson remarked long ago, in lapidary inscriptions men are not upon their oaths. The jovial Lott sought only to make Ol' Strom feel good, a worthy endeavor. In the fulsome process he fecklessly attempted to defend the indefensible.
I can offer a second explanation, but it requires a touch of autobiography.
Memory. I was born in Oklahoma City in 1920, but my paternal roots were deep in Louisiana. My grandfather served the Confederacy as a captain of cavalry.
Twice wounded and once imprisoned, he survived to beget four sons and six daughters. In the 1890s, as a prominent businessman in New Orleans, he helped to put down a black insurrection. There used to be an obelisk down on Canal Street that commemorated the incident. His name was among those carved on the memorial base.
Trent Lott was born in Grenada, Miss., in 1941. We are a generation apart, but as infants we both were nurtured on the mother's milk of segregation. In another familiar metaphor, we were bent twigs. We grew up to believe that segregation was the natural order of mankind. It was no more to be challenged than the morning tide. Racial equality? We never even thought about it. It was simply the way things were.
Memory. My family lived in a pleasant house at the corner of 18th and Barnes in Oklahoma City. There was a commodious garage for the family car --- a Hupmobile, followed by a Hudson, followed by a Studebaker. Above the garage was a small apartment. It was occupied for as long as I can remember by Lizzie, who was cook, housekeeper and general factotum.
On Sunday nights her cousin Nash would come to stay overnight. Monday mornings they would do the laundry in great double tubs in our basement, wringing out the water on a Maytag wringer, hanging the clothes on parallel lines in the back. We children loved her, and I believe the love was returned.
The relationship of white children to a black mammy is much mocked, but the ridicule is undeserved. The relationship was warm, real --- and ultimately corrupting. Subconsciously we knew that Nash and Lizzie were not really "family." They were "colored." It was, again, the way things were.
Memory. In 1937 I went off to the all-white University of Missouri. A year later Lloyd Gaines won a Supreme Court order admitting him to Missouri's law school. I wrote my mother that if Gaines got in, I was going out. The spacious campus was not big enough for both of us. I was 17. As it turned out, Gaines never showed up. I was graduated in 1941, went to work as a reporter in the all-white newsroom of the Richmond News Leader. And slowly, slowly, I began to grow up.
Memory. Richmond's Police Court in those days was run by a cadaverous bigot named Carleton Jewett. He had a mean mouth. He convicted the poor blacks who came before him on little or no evidence and often ordered them to leave town. Judge Jewett would look at a supposed timetable, then at his watch, and deliver sentence: "Niggah, there's a 12 o'clock bus to Raleigh. You be on it, you hear?" His clerk would mark the case, "continued to." I winced.
I covered the Virginia General Assembly; no blacks there. I covered trial courts and the state Supreme Court; no blacks on those benches. Richmond was a city of separate drinking fountains, separate movies, separate libraries, separate parks. Then, in May of 1954 came Brown v. Board of Education, and at last the walls began to come tumbling down.
By that time I had become editor of the News Leader's editorial pages. I brought all those tangled vines of inheritance with me. One magazine --- I believe it was Time --- identified me as the "intellectual leader of segregation." I was "the Father of Interposition." (Interposition is the idea that state governments may "interpose" themselves between the federal government and the citizens of the state in the event of federal laws the state finds disagreeable.)
Memory. Two black students staged a sit-in at the fashionable lunchroom of Thalhimer's department store. I walked three blocks from the newspaper to see what was going on. The students were indeed at a table. They were neatly dressed, creating no disturbance.
A flutter of white matrons, this being Richmond, politely minded their manners. But outside on Grace Street, a dozen white punks were staging a demonstration. This was race hatred. It was ugly. I wrote an editorial supporting the students. My publisher, God rest him, made only minor changes and let it run.
Memory. In 1960 or thereabouts, two black reporters came from out of town --- from New York, or Boston, or somewhere in the North --- to report on Richmond's reaction to the changes wrought by Brown v. Board of Education. They were attractive fellows, about my age, obviously well-educated.
Late in the afternoon we had a delightful conversation in my office. If they had been white, I would have invited them to our home for drinks and dinner. A number of such curious correspondents, all of them white, had enjoyed our hospitality. I could not bring myself to offer an invitation. That night I slept miserably. I was ashamed.
This was an epiphany of sorts. By 1970 I had severed the last vestige of Southern segregation. For me, it was over. I had come to recognize the terrible evils of state-sponsored racism. It had taken a long time. Other Southern editors --- Virginius Dabney of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Harry Ashmore in Little Rock, Ralph McGill in Atlanta --- got to a sound position long before I did.
My late wife and I reared three sons without a racist bone in their bodies. One granddaughter went to her senior prom hand in hand with her black escort; she is happily married today to a Moroccan Muslim. Another granddaughter is happily married to a former captain in the Mexican Air Force. A third granddaughter is dating a Buddhist. Here in Washington, the late Carl Rowan, the foremost black journalist of his time, nominated me for the prestigious Gridiron Club. I have come a long, long way from Lizzie. That obelisk on Canal Street has disappeared.
Finally, to the point. Trent Lott also inherited roots. We are a generation apart, but no matter. I outgrew those roots. By his impulsive greeting on Dec. 5, the senator inadvertently revealed that his roots are still growing. I wish it were not so.
On Jan. 21, 1959, a pale, tired-looking Lindsay Almond gave a statewide television address from the Capitol. He was defiant: ". . .to those who would overthrow the customs, morals and traditions of a way of life which has endured in honor and decency for centuries and embrace a new moral code prepared by nine men in Washington whose moral concepts they know nothing about. . .to all of these and their confederates, comrades and allies, let me make it abundantly clear for the record now and hereafter, as governor of this state, I will not yield to that which I know to be wrong and will destroy every semblance of education for thousands of the children of Virginia." Senator Byrd promptly complimented the governor on the speech and said perhaps "we can talk soon concerning some of the problems we are facing."
But, with no explanation, one week later Almond did a dramatic about-face in a speech before the General Assembly. Sounding more like a student of constitutional law than a Southern politician, he gave up the fight: "The police power cannot be used to thwart or override the decrees of a court of competent jurisdiction, whether it be state or federal. . . ." He advised the legislature to accept the court decisions and to formulate a local option plan which would permit integration of the schools in an orderly fashion.
The Old Guard erupted in disbelief! Betrayal! Political protests were staged across the state as former friends and allies of the governor first condemned and then shunned him. Here was a man who had stood up to the federal judges; who had been elected governor as a defender of the faith; and who had thundered across the Old Dominion preaching the segregationist gospel on countless occasions. This was no Lindsay-Come-Lately to the struggle of state's rights. "I am being reviled from many sources," Almond wrote to Dr. James A. Sydnor of the Richmond Area Committee for Public Schools, "but I had no alternative than to tell the truth to the people."
Surprisingly, there was support for the governor's dramatic switch from even some of the most conservative elements in the state. The big business community already had been heard from, and unpredictably, the Richmond newspapers decided to change course. James J. Kilpatrick, then editor of the afternoon paper The News Leader, had fueled the opposition to the Supreme Court for years by preaching a constitutional doctrine which he called "interposition." While constitutional scholars such as Lewis Powell debunked it, Kilpatrick stirred the populace with fiery editorials encouraging the governor and the state legislature to "interpose" the will of the state against the decrees of the Supreme Court as a prime exercise of states' rights.
But before the Richmond papers went public in the defense of Almond's conciliatory approach, Publisher D. Tennant Bryan accompanied by his editors, Kilpatrick and Virginius Dabney of the Times-Dispatch, took the extraordinary step of driving to Berryville, outside of Winchester, to call on Senator Byrd in his home. That the three leading journalistic powers in Virginia would call on the state's most powerful politician before declaring a sea change in editorial policy spoke volumes about the control exercised by Harry Byrd over every aspect of the public policy of the Commonwealth. Byrd did not welcome the news that Bryan, Kilpatrick, and Dabney brought him. He told them, "Virginia is the keystone to this whole fight and as long as we hold out, we can win." He had given birth to Massive Resistance, and he was determined still to give it life. He was not finished with his efforts . . .the balance of power in Virginia and in the entire South rested on the outcome. Harry Byrd was not about to give up.
http://www.suite101.com/content/past-segregationist-advocacy-part-of-kilpatrick-newspaper-legacy-a275162
What happened in the week between Governor Almond's defiant television address and his abdication of the fight?
Almond recalled the sequence of events as part of a newspaper interview in 1981. He spoke of a meeting with Senator Byrd in a remote place in the U.S. Capitol after the courts struck down the school closing laws. He described Byrd dressed in his white suit in a cramped, dimly lit room in the bowels of the building urging him as governor to call out the National Guard to prevent integration.(One unsubstantiated account of the meeting even went so far as to suggest that Byrd ordered Almond to "shoot" the children if necessary, to which the governor allegedly replied, "I'll do it, Harry, if you put it in writing.") Byrd talked of closing all the schools in the entire state. Almond recounted that Byrd said, "I'd have to resist. I told him that the Supreme Court had decided the case and that I wasn't going to resist it, couldn't resist it and couldn't get by with it. That the people wouldn't stand for closing the schools. That they might take it for a while, but in the long run they would stick to the public school system and I believed in the public schools system." Byrd said Almond should "dramatize" the fight against the courts "by going to jail if necessary . . .to resist to the last ditch." Almond recalled, "I remember telling him that I couldn't do that; that I'd have to save the schools and the only way to do it was to accept what the Supreme Court said. They had laid down the law and I intended to follow the law." When asked, 22 years after the event, how Byrd reacted to the governor's intransigence, Almond responded dryly, "He didn't like it."As notes Pedro Noguera
