This is very much an overlooked point. I believe we face the challenge of de-segregation of the heart. My sense, as vicious as Southern racism can be, there is more of a humanity to its regional culture, now diluted by modernity. The South may end up showing the North the way.

Before, and preparing me for, the inevitable cascade of disclaimers and virtue signalling, permit me to say that, absolutely, the right side won The Great Civil War; as a 'ute', I was a Yankee still fighting the war.

Many events define our history, often toward the bereavement of what might have been. For me two of the most consequential, in this respect, are the assassinations of President Lincoln and Senator Kennedy a little over a century apart.