I only knew James J. Kilpatrick as a syndicated words columnist who my dad liked to read in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

I had no idea Kilpatrick had once supported segregation so vehemently that in 1963 he wrote an article for The Saturday Evening Post with the proposed title, "The Hell He Is Equal," and a thesis that, "the Negro race, as a race, is in fact an inferior race."

(The article wasn't published because the editor got to feeling queasy when four black girls were killed the church bombing in Birmingham, Ala.)

As a writer, I guess I find it comforting to know that it's possible to be dead-ass wrong on the most important moral issue of your time, and go on to have a happy writing career.

As a man, I hope I never have to account for such a grave error on the ungenerous side of the ledger.