James J. Kilpatrick never fully separated himself from his editorial support in the Richmond News Leader during the 1950s for racial segregation and closing Virginia's public schools instead of accepting integration. The debate, while long dormant in his case, was renewed to an extent with his death from congestive heart failure August 15, 2010 at age 89 in Washington, D.C.
“His career with the evening newspaper spanned the tumultuous years after the 1954 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that outlawed racially segregated schools -- a decision against which Mr. Kilpatrick acknowledged even by foes as a gifted wordsmith, thundered with pointed eloquence,” Jeff E. Schapiro wrote August 17, 2010 in the Richmond Times-Dispatch in “Firebrand columnist James J. Kilpatrick dies at 89.”
Impact of Constitutional Arguments Favoring States' Rights
While the Oklahoma-born Kilpatrick expressed regret for his past writings and enjoyed a moderated persona in later years as a columnist and commentator, some maintain that the effects remain of his constitutional arguments for the prevalence of state law over federal government action with which states disagree.
“Black journalists have not been so quick to forgive the conservative columnist for his role in organizing ‘massive resistance’ to school desegregation,” Richard Prince wrote in The Root August 18, 2010 in “Journal-isms: James J. Kilpatrick’s Racist Past Not Easily Forgotten.”
“I never thought that Mr. Kilpatrick had a understanding of the damage he caused with his support of massive resistance,” said a commenter August 17, 2010 on the Times-Dispatch obituary. “I went to school with people who had family members who were locked out of the public schools in 1959-1964 who are still living with the aftermath of not having an education. Teachers who lost their jobs for 5 years and had to relocate to other counties or out of the state to make a living. Families who moved out of the county or sent their children out of Virginia never to return.”
Kilpatrick Debate With Martin Luther King
In November 1960, while still editor of the now-defunct Richmond News Leader, Kilpatrick debated Martin Luther King Jr. on national TV over the legal justification of sit-in demonstrations to oppose segregation. Kilpatrick defended the rights of store owners as private property owners and disputed King as to whether sit-ins were truly non-violent. He maintained that they heightened tensions and led to threats against individuals and businesses.
Before he turned to editorials on school desegregation, Kilpatrick early in his career at the News Leader had reported on the case of Silas Rogers, a black man who shined shoes, convicted of shooting to death a Virginia police officer in 1943. Inconsistencies in testimony which Kilpatrick highlighted in his stories led to a pardon in 1952 for Rogers, who was on death row, by Virginia Gov. John S. Battle.
When Kilpatrick subsequently discussed his past views on racial integration, he noted that he was sorry for defending state-sanctioned discrimination. But some construed that to mean he had not moved so far away from his stand on equality of the races. His later explanation was that the closing of schools in Virginia had enabled desegregation to occur without violent opposition.
In a 2002 article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kilpatrick repudiated the comments of then U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., in support of Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist presidential candidacy, and some of his own racial history.
But the criticism remained following his death. “That Kilpatrick was able to remain ‘prominent’ after his ignorant and hateful vitriol must be attributed to a lingering and perhaps foundational racism in the conservative movement along with a mainstream media that sees such overt racism as a type of historical balance to liberalism and diversity, not as something inherently wrong and immoral,” Kurt Hochenauer wrote in his Okie Funk post August 17, 2010, “Did Kilpatrick Learn Racist Views In OKC?”
Avoidance of Race as a Heated Topic in Later Years
After his Richmond newspaper years, Kilpatrick moved to Northern Virginia and later Washington and became a widely syndicated columnist on politics, the court system, and other subjects (sometimes writing about the approach of fall colors as seen from his Rappahannock County, Virginia home) and a contributing editor for National Review. He defended conservatism in debates aired on “60 Minutes” and as a regular panelist on the weekly public affairs program “Agronsky and Company,” hosted by the late Martin Agronsky.
He initially supported President Richard M. Nixon during Watergate and then concluded he felt betrayed by the revelations of Nixon's involvement in the cover-up of illegal activities. But he stayed away from the specific topic of race in most instances in his later writing.
He also produced a syndicated column on the English language, as well as a book on writing, The Writer's Art, and covered the courts and law. J.E. Dyer in “James J. Kilpatrick, R.I.P.” August 17, 2010 in Commentary, said: “Someone has to write about writing, but not everyone makes the forensic examination an adventure. The Writer’s Art is Exhibit A in my case that Kilpatrick deserved to have his literary quirks and preferences respected — and his inconsistencies overlooked — simply because he wrote so well.”
Upon Kilpatrick’s retirement from journalism, fellow conservative William Murchison praised his style of writing in “A Master’s Voice” March 6, 2009 on National Review Online. “Kilpo’s conservative sensibilities -- his care for the venerable, the fragile, the historic; his care for carefulness itself -- inform the best of his writings.”
Those who disagreed with him took note as well, Murchison said. “Even liberals could appreciate the sheer beauty with which Kilpatrick clothed his prose and the spirit with which he held aloft, deliberately, the ideals of written English. He has the writer’s ear. He hears this stuff, as if Bach were playing it on the organ. It sings to him and through him to us.”
John Seidenberg - John Seidenberg has worked on newspapers, newsletters, radio news, and produced specialized news publications as well as freelance ...
