Editing Hodding Carter (section)

==Criticism==
Columnist [[Eric Alterman]], in a book review of ''The Race Beat'' (2006) for ''[[The Nation]]'' discusses how Carter and other Southern journalists were "moderate defenders" of the South. That is, they were apologists for the South during the pre-[[civil rights]] era. Alterman says, "'Enlightened'" Southern editors, especially...Mississippi's Hodding Carter, Jr., sold [Northerners] a [[Ahmed Chalabi|Chalabi]]-like dream of steady, nonviolent progress that belied the violent savagery that lay in wait for those who stepped out of line".<ref>[http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070108/alterman Alterman, Eric.] ''The Nation,'' "And the Beat Goes On", January 8, 2007.</ref> One of the reasons segregation had been a success, according to Alterman, is "the way newspapers had neglected it".

In ''Hodding Carter: The Reconstruction of a Racist'', author [[Ann Waldron]] makes the case that although Carter crusaded for racial equality, he hedged on condemning [[Racial segregation|segregation]], and that after ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' in 1954, he attacked the intransigent [[Citizens' Councils|White Citizens' Council]], but only supported gradual [[Desegregation in the United States|integration]].<ref>Waldron, ibid.</ref>

In defense of Carter, Claude Sitton, writing about Waldron's book in ''[[The New York Times]]'' says, "[R]eaders of today will ask how an editor who opposed enactment of a federal antilynching law as unnecessary and [[Public school (government funded)|public school]] desegregation in [[Mississippi]] as unwise can be called a champion of [[social justice|racial justice]]. The answer, which she gives in the book's introduction, lies in the context of the times...Absent his efforts and those of other Southern editors of courage and like mind, change would have come far more slowly and at far greater cost."<ref>Sitton, Claude. ''The New York Times,'' Book Review.</ref>