When the funeral cortege of Martin Luther King Jr. passed near the Georgia state Capitol in 1968, the state’s segregationist governor, Lester Maddox, refused to acknowledge the event in any way. He did not close the schools in observance, and he made sure the flags on the Capitol building were not lowered to half-staff. I was a senior in high school then, a few weeks away from graduation, but I remember that I felt a deep sense of disgust at the actions of our white racist governor.