A Passion for Justice

In 1945, when southern segregationist Judge J. Waties Waring turned civil rights activist, he became the first jurist in modern times to declare segregated schooling "inequality per se". Throughout his career he also ordered the equalization of teachers' salaries, outlawed South Carolina's white primary, and urged the complete breakdown of state-enforced bars to racial intermingling. Yarbrough examines the life and career of this fascinating but neglected jurist, assessing the controversy he generated and his place in the early history of the modern civil rights movement.