ABSTRACT
For more than four decades James Jackson Kilpatrick has elevated the character and intensity of national debate between liberals and conservatives. His cogent analysis of the country’s halting efforts to reconcile its past with dramatic economic and social change has earned him membership in respected circle of national opinion leaders. Kilpatrick began his journalistic career in 1941 when he took a job as a reporter for Richmond News Leader in the staid and comfortable capital city of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Living in Virginia has meant a great deal to Kilpatrick from the very first, and it is important to understand that fact in order to appreciate both the wisdom and bias of his conservatism. Defending the traditional South to the rest of the country was a task Kilpatrick thoroughly enjoyed. He had been in the process of defining the essence of the South to his Virginia neighbors long before his promotion to chief editorial writer for Richmond News Leader.
