... in 1950 a very large slice of the white South stood at the crossroads in its attitude toward its colored citizens and [was] psychologically capable of turning either way.

A mechanism of some kind stands between us and almost every act of our lives.

I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn't love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country.

Our minorities alone are in a position to know what the fathers of our democracy were talking about.

... most Southerners of my parents' era were raised to feel that it wasn't respectable to be rich. We felt that all patriotic Southerners had lost everything in defense of the South, and sufficient time hadn't elapsed for respectable rebuilding of financial security in a war- impoverished region.

... in 1950 a very large slice of the white South stood at the crossroads in its attitude toward its colored citizens and [was] psychologically capable of turning either way.

If we love-and-serve an ideal we reach backward in time to its inception and forward to its consummation. To grow is sometimes to hurt; but who would return to smallness?