Word: pettigrew
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Born in Richmond, Va., in 1931, Thomas F. Pettigrew escaped the doctrine of racism from the start. "I was brought up by a Scottish grandmother who thought that all Americans--North or South, black or white--were crazy," he relates. "My father was a mild-mannered man, conservative but not racist, who came from the hills of West Virginia. It was a great combination...
...thought it was absolute injustice that Mildred Adams couldn't see Humphery Bogart. One day I just refused to go into the theater when they wouldn't admit Mildred." Here, Pettigrew laughs. "My mother always used to say that was the first of the boycotts...
...time he was 12, Pettigrew was having arguments over race with his teachers. "They used to send me to the principal because I maintained that Jefferson was a great liberal," he recalls. "Naturally, the opposition of my teachers just fed my convictions." At college at the University of Virginia, liberal professors further bostered his beliefs...
...Pettigrew is one of those people for whom interests, beliefs, and career dovetailed perfectly. He describes his decision to major in psychology quite simply: "I've always been interested in race relations, but I never realized that you could study them." Graduating in 1952, he came to Harvard to study under Gordon W. Allport, and earned his doctorate in 1956. After teaching for a year at the University of North Carolina, he returned to Cambridge, where he has remained ever since...
...medium height with a graying crewcut, Pettigrew could easily pass for a junior executive--that is, until he opens his mouth. He speaks in slang, spiced with psychological and sociological jargon. (Someone is "scared as shatters;" de facto segregation is the "functional equivalent" of legal segregation.) His Southern drawl, clipped short after 12 years in the North, can be turned on and off at will, but generally a distinct trace of it clings to his words...