National Affairs: Pains of History

Through the U.S. South ran the sight and sound, the pain and glory of historic sociological change. Where racism had been growing roots ever since the first slaves for the British colonies arrived in 1619, more Negro children began going to school in the same classrooms with white children. As is often the case in such moments of history, the worst and the best in man—hate and human charity, stupidity and wisdom—came out before the world.

There were the raucous curses of a fat Kentucky harridan and the horrid spit of a North Carolina fanatic. But there was the fine, quiet...

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