 |
My review of Prof. Joseph Crespino’s new biography of Strom Thurmond is in the current edition of National Review :
The black comedian Dick Gregory said in 1971 that race relations in America were easy to understand: “In the North they don’t care how big I get, long as I don’t get too close. Down South, they don’t care how close I get, long as I don’t get too big.” Since his death, Strom Thurmond has been reduced to proof of this joke, if not a joke himself: the arch-segregationist with a black daughter who obviously didn’t mind if “they” got quite close indeed. He was a joke for many years before that, too — the doddering nonagenarian, the notorious flirt who fathered his last child at the age of 74, the southern throwback who patronized female congressional witnesses by saying things like “These are the prettiest witnesses we have had in a long time. I imagine you are all married.” In the world of politics, ancient history is anything that happened more than 25 years ago, and we have to look back much further than that to find a time when Strom Thurmond was not a punchline.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
