The Best of Enemies
Pros
During the voting, all the issues pass, coming down to the final issue of desegregation. One by one, the voters vote. Ann votes for it, and C.P., surprising everyone, does the same, realizing the KKK is hateful. Also, he makes a speech and rips up his KKK membership card, much to the fury of his watching KKK friends. They threaten him and try to set the gas station that he owns on fire but C.P. puts it out. Now that the white community won't buy his gas anymore, his station is going out of business. Ann and Bill visit him with smiles and they bring in the black community to buy from him instead. [1]
C.P. has grown up regarding black people as The Other. As he spends more and more time in a room, talking with them on equal footing, his ignorance starts to fall away, despite his best efforts to hold it in place
Controversy
Klan subordinates in shooting up a white woman’s house — with her in it — because they learn that she’s dating a “nigger.” He won’t sit with black people, as evidenced in a scene in which he avoids occupying any space close to Atwater by moping about the room, staring at everything but her, while Atwater’s grimaced face follows his every step. As the owner of a gas station, he won’t serve black people. He doesn’t hesitate to call them “niggers” (or the more cartoonish “nigras”) in their presence. And he certainly won’t condone having his children attend the same schools as black children. [2]