From the WSJ Opinion Archives
THE WESTERN FRONT

Little Things Mean a Lott
Republicans must repudiate racism outside the Beltway too.

by BRENDAN MINITER
Monday, December 23, 2002 12:01 A.M. EST

If the Republicans go back about their business now that the Lott affair is over, then they've lost a tremendous opportunity. Trent Lott is gone as leader, but if the GOP wants to prove its commitment to equality, it will have to find the little Lotts who lurk about in the party and make sure they no longer feel welcome.

Any Beltway Republican who doubts that the party pays a steep price for elected officials who aren't good ambassadors on race--even on the local level--should take the two hour ride out to Warren County, Va. Here the public schools are among the worst in the state. And while Republicans are unbeatable in local, state and federal elections, they can't seem to crack the liberal lock on education policy. In this county, as in other jurisdictions in the South, the ghost of past racist policies still lurk in some corners.

Consider the story of James W. Kilby. For years in the 1950s, he'd fought with the local school board over having to send his children to school 60 miles away. The journey to school was too far to make every day, so the Kilby kids had to be boarded in Manassas, a Washington exurb. Fearful his children would get into trouble without his guidance, Mr. Kilby forced the school board to bus his kids home for weekend visits every two weeks. In 1958, he was fed up with segregation and successfully sued to open the local high school.

Mr. Kilby's son, James M. Kilby, was one of the first blacks to attend Warren County High School. The younger Mr. Kilby tells of the family's hardships in his self-published book, "The Forever Fight." On many occasions someone took shots at the Kilby house at night. On such night, the shots so frightened the Kilbys' dog that it dragged the doghouse to which it was chained across the yard. Later the dog and several of the Kilbys' cows were poisoned. The intimidation was so frequent, the younger Mr. Kilby writes, that his father slept with his bedroom window open and his gun at the ready.

A few days after James M. Kilby graduated from Warren County High, the sheriff came looking for him. Mr. Kilby admits he threw some rocks at some white kids, but he says it was only to defend himself and his younger brother. This wasn't the first time a group of white kids had picked a fight with him. A judge found him guilty of assault, however, and gave him a year's suspended sentence. Mr. Kilby is convinced the local political establishment, wanting revenge for his father's lawsuit, set all this up to keep him from joining the military. Tired of being a target, Mr. Kilby moved to Washington and later joined the National Guard.

I didn't know any of this local history when I arrived in Front Royal in 1998, as the Warren County reporter for the Northern Virginia Daily. What I knew was that in 1995 the school board had so neglected the high school that it had hundreds of cracked and broken windows, symbolic of the slippage of educational standards. The school board wanted to tear down the high school, but it is an elegant building that overlooks the town, and residents see it as a symbol of the community. So the voters rebelled, sweeping the Republicans into power.

Virginia law prohibits parties from endorsing school board candidates, but in small towns party affiliation is hard to obscure. So what followed was a year of relentless verbal attacks on the Republicans on the school board: anonymous and threatening phone calls, scathing letters published in the newspaper and vicious name calling. The intensity of the attacks was shocking, especially considering no one was proposing any radical changes. The campaign let up only when then chairman, Marcus Robinson Jr., capitulated and started to vote with the two liberals on the board.

In the process the new members managed to save the high school, but they lost the battles for real reform. Three years later standardized tests revealed the high school was among the worst in the state in math. School choice and charter-school proposals went by the boards. Meanwhile spending spun out of control. The board spent more than $100,000 to build a one-story concession stand.

In the midst of this Mr. Kilby walked into a school board meeting one night and announced he wanted to hang a plaque commemorating the 40th anniversary of the integration of the high school. The school board approved Mr. Kilby's plan, but only after the chairman, abruptly walked out of the room. After the vote he walked back in. I thought it was odd, for I'd sat through more than a dozen school board meetings and had never seen a member leave the room without asking for a recess.

Later one of the school board members filled me in on background. The chairman couldn't bring himself to vote for the plaque. "Even some of the good old boys in my district will hold this vote against me," the other board member told me. Within a few weeks the issue of race popped up again. The school board chairman nixed a proposal to name the new middle school after a local black hero, instead dubbing it Leach Run, after a local creek.

When I met Mr. Kilby he'd just moved back to Front Royal, was building a new house and was getting active with the local NAACP. I interviewed him in his dining room, while freshly laid carpet covered the living room floor and building materials littered almost every other room. He told me he was hesitant to meet with a reporter from the Northern Virginia Daily, because he remembered the paper's coverage from the 1960s. Until he said this, I had thought the political discussion we were having hinged on the merits of the ideas.

I knew then that when Mr. Kilby hung his high school diploma on the wall of his new house, he wouldn't be thanking Reaganomics for his modest affluence. To him the successes of life came only through triumphing over a system of racial hatred. That system scarred him with a deep cynicism, but also helps him pick up on subtle insults. He didn't need anyone to fill him in on why the school board chairman was conveniently out of the room for a vote to honor a few local black heroes.

One thing about evil is that it corrupts good people. Keep that in mind now as politicians line up to say nice things about Trent Lott. The senator from Mississippi might be a good man, but that's no defense for the evil of segregation he endorsed.

President Bush was right to single out the senator by name. But repudiating Mr. Lott isn't enough. Republicans say they stand for individual freedom. They must have the courage to openly engage the debate on racial issues, with arguments of why minorities are better off if Republican ideas are enacted. Republicans must stand and argue for their principles at all levels of government. No more walking out of the room.

Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Mondays.

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