In 1960 or “thereabouts,” James J. Kilpatrick vaguely, unhappily remembered, two black journalists came to his office in Richmond to report on the city’s response to the 1954Brown v. Board of Educationruling and asked for his opinion as editor of theRichmond News Leader. Forty-two years later, in 2002, Kilpatrick noted the reporters as about his age, attractive, and intelligent. Despite their engaging conversation in his office about the city’s reactions to the desegregation decision, Kilpatrick had not extended invitations to them for dinner or drinks. His reasoning could not have been simpler: they were black; Negroes and...

When James J. Kilpatrick went to Richmond in 1941, he had a limited understanding of writing for a professional newspaper, even less knowledge of Virginia, and only a nascent political philosophy. But that Kilpatrick was an authentic conservative in the making there could be no doubt. Although he did not come from aristocratic Virginia bloodlines or from a powerful political family, Kilpatrick was imbued from his childhood with the ideals of genteel southern conservatism tempered by individualism and the realities of capitalist imperatives. In perhaps unconventional ways, a sense of place, family background, and eventually acceptance of Richmond’s old-line high...

By Christmas 1955, James Kilpatrick was one of the loudest voices of intransigence toward civil rights reform and a budding star in the segregationist South and the conservative intellectual movement. In a series of columns, beginning in late November 1955 and ending in early February 1956, theNews Leadereditor revived the states’ rights philosophy of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and John C. Calhoun from the annals of American history and resurrected the wizened doctrine of interposition to halt the effects of theBrowndecision handed down on 17 May 1954 by the U.S. Supreme Court and Chief Justice Earl...

In the summer and fall of 1957, James J. Kilpatrick’s work at theRichmond News Leaderconsumed at least fourteen hours of each day, and the preservation of segregation dominated much of his thought. The man most responsible for making interposition a reality and stirring portions of the white South to protest the Supreme Court’sBrowndecision was once again under duress. Massive resistance in Virginia showed signs of crumbling when federal courts began to hear cases about the desegregation of public schools in Norfolk, Charlottesville, and the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Kilpatrick wrote to his friend William J. Simmons,...

New Year’s Day 1960 fell in the middle of a winter of discontent for Richmond segregationists. The day before, columnist Lenoir Chambers stung massive resisters for the school closures with an editorial drenched in moral condemnation:

More intelligent handling of problems of great difficulty will continue and increase only if commonsense and courage continue to direct the course of both political leadership and public opinion. The struggles for reasonable solutions are not over. The state may see setbacks of serious proportions. It is certain to encounter perplexities not easy to resolve. It may discover demagogues entranced with the thought of...

“I find myself in a peculiar limbo just now, unwilling to identify myself with the total segregationists in their supposed hell, and twice as unwilling to identify myself with the gauzy liberals in their phony heaven,” James Kilpatrick speculated about his own beliefs. By March 1961, he had left the familiarity and security of segregation for the unknown. His uncertainty came after a year of heightened civil rights activity. Brandishing old charges and clinging to segregation laws as ways to thwart Negro advancements had simply not worked. Specifically, he wrestled with the imminent downfall of Jim Crow. Wallowing in confusion...

On a Thursday afternoon in September 1973, James J. Kilpatrick stood behind a podium waiting for television studio cameras to start rolling. A flamboyant African American technician walked into the set. Glancing at the young man’s pink and purple, high-heeled, platform shoes, Kilpatrick exclaimed, “Wow!” “Do you wear those out on the street?” he asked with a coy little chortle. “Only out to the car and back,” laughed the technician as he studied Kilpatrick’s footwear. Then, he reprimanded Kilpatrick, “You still wearing wingtips? You ought to be ashamed!” The columnist’s sartorial dress for televised appearances was immaculate, down to his...