In excerpts of her book "The Condoleezza Rice Story," reprinted in the London Sunday Times, Felix recounts:

"With the bombings came marauding groups of armed white vigilantes called 'nightriders,' who drove through black neighborhoods shooting and starting fires. [Condi's father] John Rice and his neighbors guarded the streets at night with shotguns.

"The memory of her father out on patrol lies behind Rice’s opposition to gun control today. Had those guns been registered, she argues, Bull Connor would have had a legal right to take them away, thereby removing one of the black community’s only means of defense."

"I have a sort of pure Second Amendment view of the right to bear arms," said the future secretary of state.

Editor's note: