James J. Kilpatrick: Salesman for Segregation

A visiting assistant professor of history at the University of Mississippi traces the intellectual journey of James J. Kilpatrick from regional southern journalist to one of the most prominent conservative commentators of the latter half of the 20th century. Kilpatrick focused his early career on creating supposedly acceptable public arguments against desegregation by “elevat[ing] the level of debate beyond race” and into the realm of constitutional theory—as a harbinger of FOX News and the conservative talk radio cadre, he is most interesting as an embodiment of how desperately the south fought integration. Hustwit’s analysis reveals how many of their tactics—e.g., asserting that “real affirmative action meant letting blacks help themselves”—have become standards of conservative rhetoric, and it is sobering to discover how readily the mass media and society at large accepted Kilpatrick’s overt racism, even as late as 1963. (After Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, Kilpatrick wrote a solicited article for the Saturday Evening Post entitled “The Hell He Is Equal.” To the magazine’s credit they decided in the wake of the Birmingham church bombings not to publish it.) Hustwit’s history will likely find a limited scholarly audience, but it represents an important aspect of the Civil Rights movement. 9 illus. (May)