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Opinion: Support for segregation as a youthful indiscretion

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Elaine Woo’s excellent obituary of James J. Kilpatrick noted that the onetime supporter of school segregation moderated his views on race, pleading in an interview that ‘I was brought up a white boy in Oklahoma City in the 1920s and 1930s. I accepted segregation as a way of life. But I’ve come a long way. Very few of us, I suspect, would like to have our passions and profundities at age 28 thrust in our faces at 50.’

Maybe not, but Kilpatrick made it sound as if his position on segregation -- that states could override the Supreme Court -- was something of a youthful lark. Instead, it was a considered constitutional theory in service of a social system that many sophisticated and erudite adults defended.

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One of the unfortunate aspects of the passage of time is that many young people imagine that segregationists were all potbellied sheriffs and vulgar race-baiters. It’s important to know that the obstructionists included a lot of Kilpatricks, which makes the achievement of the civil rights movement all the more radical and remarkable.

-- Michael McGough

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