Not all people in the old south in the 1960's were bigots. I am sure that goes without saying but it is good to know and read about someone who did speak out against the racial hate that occurred during those days. One such person was Eugene Patterson who from 1960 to 1968 was the editor of the Atlanta Constitution. "He wrote thousands of columns-many addressed directly to fellow white Southerners-setting out the campaign for desegregation in clear moral terms..." He saw first hand what racial hatred led to in Nazi Germany when he served in WWII and when he returned to his native south he spoke out about it in this country. His most famous column was written in response to the bombing of the African American church in Birmingham, Alabama in which four young black girls were killed. It was titled "A Flower for the Graves" and was printed in his paper on Sept 16, 1963. The column began with this line: "In her hand she held a shoe, one shoe, from the foot of her dead child. We hold that shoe with her. Every one of us in the white South holds that small shoe in his hand". He later worked for the Washington Post and the St. Petersburg Times. He died recently at the age of 80. ( I remember, when I was young, thinking for a long time-without knowing really why-that the Atlanta Constitution was one of the major US newspapers; this could be why)
(Source: "The Southern editor who fostered racial equality" in The Week on 1/25/13)
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