It is a script that no one could have contemplated, and only God could have written. Former Governor Lester Maddox, former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, and former United States Senator Strom Thurmond all lay in state during the same week that the United States Supreme Court issued its most significant decision involving race in America in twenty-five years. The symbolism defies adequate description. Here is a less than adequate attempt.

Lester Maddox was an unrepentant segregationist that an overwhelmingly white Democratic Georgia Legislature selected to be Governor notwithstanding his loss in popular vote to Republican Howard “Bo” Callaway. Tributes notwithstanding, Lester Maddox held off three African-Americans seeking to integrate his Picknick restaurant wielding a pistol and accompanied by friends with ax handles. Later, he would close his restaurant rather than integrate in accordance with court orders and, autograph “Pickrick Drumstick” ax handles like the ones his supporters used to prevent African-Americans from entering. He represented the Dark Ages of Georgia’s history in which good ‘ole boys’ ruled and neither ballot boxes nor court orders counted. Times changed, thankfully; Lester Maddox never did.

Maynard Jackson was an African-American version of Newt Gingrich, unwilling to wait on the times to change - kicking down proverbial doors and shattering glass ceilings. Notwithstanding the establishment’s efforts to appease and defer, Maynard Jackson challenged the Democratic establishment in Atlanta and defeated in 1973 Sam Massell, Atlanta’s last white Mayor. After his election, he resisted the ‘coopt Maynard’ effort by the business establishment and set new rules for how the City of Atlanta would work. Unwilling to accept token handouts for emerging African-American businesses, Maynard Jackson used his position as the first African American of a major southern city to impose his will of retroactive equality for struggling minority owned businesses so that they could share in the success of Atlanta, not feed from leftovers after the deals had been done. His size and presence made him an easy target for attacks as a bully, intent on his own agenda without regard for the ramifications to others. Yet, in person, he was a big hearted man who understood that real change involved some broken doors and shattered glass. Agree with him or not, no one can seriously challenge that he forever changed the role that African Americans now enjoy in Atlanta and Georgia; Maynard Jackson was change personified.

Strom Thurmond was an evolving political survivor who understood that times change, and to survive politicians have to change also. Starting as a white Democrat and evolving to a Dixiecrat and ultimately becoming a Republican, Strom Thurmond reflected a changing America from one which favored segregation to one which opposed it, to an America that understood the need for fundamental change to fully afford equality for all. No one, as Senator Trent Lott learned the hard way, could ever legitimately suggest that the America that Strom Thurmond saw as a candidate for President was an appropriate destiny for this great country. But like many Americans, Strom Thurmond abandoned outdated and immoral beliefs, opting instead for new ideas for an old politician that reflected what America should and could be as opposed to what it was. America became better with Strom Thurmond, because he changed and because it changed.