emerging leaders in UVA’s own history department, such as the southern historian Paul M. Gaston, were reaching conclusions that, in effect, echoed the teachings of Martin Luther King and civil rights activists: that radical restructuring would be required to include all Americans in the promise of opportunity, and that for this, federal intervention was essential. It was needed for a simple reason, they showed: because only the federal government had the power to end the long train of damaging injustices shielded by undemocratic state governments.45
