Who lived, as I did, through the 1960's and understands what happened? There was almost too much to perceive, much less to comprehend. The decade began with Camelot, days of glory and challenge and shared sacrifice, when it seemed that together we could go to the moon or beyond. Then--like shocks of lightning--came the killing of a President and his brother; the assassination of Dr. King; the seething fog of a war that makes no sense even today; much of Detroit and Los Angeles in flames.
In West Virginia, Whites and Blacks lived in peace. But in honor of John F. Kennedy, President Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through the Congress. Desegregation was about to come to West Virginia. For the most part the transition was peaceful, and had to do mostly with the integration of schools, in a part of the country where "traditionally White institutions" and "traditionally Black schools"--while no longer completely segregated--are still a part of the landscape. In some places, there had been separate hospitals as well. But I grew up in West Virginia without ever having seen an all-white restaurant, church, store, or public restroom. Those were traditions of the Deep South, not West Virginia.
West Virginians are proud, strong, and fiercely independent. Change--without good reason--proceeds only slowly at best. The average hard-working West Virginian was an Eisenhower Republican, not a Southern Democrat. White people and black people worked and played and worshipped and served together. Although shockingly abrupt, school desegregation did not cause widespread alarm--just minor unrest. Still, society stayed with long-held tradition. There was little (if any) interracial marriage, and that is still viewed with some skepticism everywhere, but openly in West Virginia. My grandfather would not have approved if his daughter had decided to marry a black man. On the other hand, he would never have disowned her. And he would have loved their children.
After he signed the Civil Rights Act, we understand that a close confidant of Lyndon Johnson told him that the Democratic Party had now lost the South for at least a generation. There must have been truth in this, since the Southern Democrats of the George Wallace generation are now proud Republicans. But West Virginia remained Democratic throughout the Reagan Revolution ... voting for Humphrey in 1968, Carter in 1976 and 1980, even Dukakis in 1988. In 1992 and 1996, West Virginia went strongly for Clinton, and we all know how good it can feel to be on the winning side for a change. It is not difficult to understand how much West Virginians might like to return to the Clinton era.
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