An Associated Press article about the regular emergence of the term “state’s rights” in the Republican presidential primaries quoted James C. Cobb, the B. Phinizy Spalding Distinguished Professor in the History of the American South at UGA.
“Any time I hear it, I get this sort of little twitch, because I associate it with Ross Barnett or George Wallace,” said Cobb referring to the governors of Mississippi and Alabama who, five decades ago, defied efforts to integrate their states’ flagship universities. “But members of the younger generation, it doesn’t have that kind of connotation to them at all. And whether this is to some extent the fault of those of us who are supposed to be educating the younger generations about their past, I can’t say.”
