The Color of Their Skin

Book excerpt: By choosing this subtler form of defiance, city officials were able, in effect, to stave off integration for nearly two decades. The Color of Their Skin also covers Richmond politics concerning the issue. The clash of conservative idealogues such as James J. Kilpatrick and former governor Mills Godwin with activist black attorneys like Oliver W. Hill and Samuel W. Tucker bred a "conservatively" moderate element that was represented on the Richmond school board by the likes of board president (and later Supreme Court Justice) Lewis F. Powell. Powell attempted to chart a course between the extreme factions, a course that Pratt accurately describes as "tokenism," since only a handful of blacks was ever admitted to Richmond's schools until the 1970 school busing decree. Pratt demonstrates how the impact of school desegregation was felt beyond the schools, in the demographics of the city itself.