From the mid-1950's to the early 1970s, The Richmond Times Dispatch flew the flag of "massive resistance," a neo-Confederate strategy to repel racial integration and perpetuate "the Southern way of life."
 
Virginius Dabney, then the Times Dispatch's executive editor, led the newspaper's charge against the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared segregation illegal. At the same time that Dabney urged white resistance to federal law, he mouthed support of equality for blacks -- but not integration.
 
Nearly four decades later, however, Glenn Proctor, a longtime journalist with an industry-wide reputation for excellence, is settling into the seat Dabney held long ago, a post he began last month. 

As of the most recent website posting by the National Association of Black Journalists, Proctor -- who also has the title of vice-president -- is one of only 16 black executive editors at daily newspapers nationwide.  Seven of them head newspapers in the South.

In an interview Friday, Proctor was asked to describe his feelings as the newspaper's first black executive editor and vice-president in light of its history of high-pitched advocacy for "massive resistance." His answer was quick, sharp and short.

"That,” he told BlackAmericaWeb.com, “was 50 years ago."
 
A former Kent State University Journalism professor, press secretary for a Florida congressman and two-time Pulitzer Prize juror, Proctor said the Dispatch and its Southern location "had nothing to do with my decision" to accept the challenge in Richmond.  "I view this challenge as a leadership opportunity. He said that, "like a professional football coach who sees a team he believes he can take to the Super Bowl, I saw a newspaper where I believe we can turn situations around and produce very good quality."
 
Proctor, who replaced William H. Millsaps Jr., at the Times Dispatch, was an associate managing editor of the Newark, New Jersey-based Star Ledger before accepting the position in Richmond.
 
With a bevy of training, recruitment and editing skills acquired since he entered the profession as a reporter in 1970, Proctor, 59, is expected to lead two daunting charges for Media General, the company that owns the Times Dispatch: improving the the newspaer's editorial content and reversing its circulation losses.
 
To do so, Proctor will have to rally the newspaper's 220 staffers in 10 statewide satellites, including its Washington bureau. He must also convince city and suburban residents that the newspaper, not long ago known as the "Richmond Times Disgrace" because of its conservatism, is finally looking more to the future than the past.
 
That may prove quite difficult among many in the city's majority population, who reportedly view the newspaper with suspicion and distrust.  The Times Dispatch increased its dissatisfaction among blacks, progressives and moderate whites by maintaining an all-white newsroom until 1979, when its first full-time black writer, Bonnie Winston, was hired.  And since then, according to sources, Media General has rebuffed repeated pleas by mixed groups of staffers hoping the company will designate Dr. Martin Luther king's birthday as an institutional holiday.
 
Nevertheless, Proctor seems eager to accept the challenge. In a statement released by Media General, Procter said he is "honored to become part of the management team at the Times Dispatch" and that "this newspaper has a long and deep history, and I hope in the years to come ahead we can add to that legacy."
 
When he learned the executive editorship would soon open, Proctor, who, with his wife, Teri, has four children, said he began reading the Times Dispatch to evaluate its substance. Now, he said, one of his primary concerns is the newspaper's editorial content, which is not highly regarded in the industry. The newspaper's circulation is 181,000 on weekdays and 222,000 on Sunday.
 
But with 220 staffers, Proctor said, "I am very satisified that I have the resources, especially in this day and time, to improve the quality."
 
Proctor, a former Marine gunnery sergeant who said he intentionally projects the image of a "hard-ass," will doubtlessly call on his 10 years of experience as a reporter, week-end and night metro editor at the Akron Beacon Journal. He will also lean on a host of experiences and lessons learned as business and night metro editor at the Louisville, Kentucky-based Courier Journal and key editorships at the Quad Cities Times in Davenport, Iowa and The Democrat and Chronicle/Times Union in Rochester, New York.
 
He will also rely on "Proctor's Rules," which he said "have worked where ever I've been and will always work."  In management, Proctor said in an interview two years ago, he establishes a nucleus of diversity guidelines for successful hiring and retention.  At their core, they include, "committing from the top to the opportunity, not an obligation in hiring a diverse staff, covering communities whole and creating a big pool from which to hire, taking risks, knowing that sometimes the best from that pool don't come with the biggest splash, training deliberately and insistently and not pigeonholing news or people."            
 
One Richmond leader reached Friday for comment on Proctor's appointment, Raymond Boone, the founder, publisher and editor of the Richmond Free Press, a black weekly newspaper, was not optimistic in predicting Proctor's future success in transforming the Times Dispatch.

"I wish him well," said Boone, a former Howard University Journalism professor, who, like Proctor, is also a two-time Pulitzer juror. "If he tries to rock any boats, his actions could prove detrimental to his future there."
 
Boone alleged that, "at best, Proctor is a token there.  Media General is in charge, not Proctor. They just want to put him out front for image purposes.”

Critics like Boone say the Times Dispatch replaced its “massive resistance” mantra with support for “the Southern Strategy,” the plan to draw whites embittered by forced integration into the Republican Party's fold, written by Harry Dent in 1968. With it, the South, once solidly Democratic, has become one giant Republican preserve.
 
Boone, whose newspaper has a circulation of 33,000 with 20 percent white readership, charged that the Dispatch "is the most divisive force in the city."
 
Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder, through his press secretary, declined to comment for this article.  Wilder, the city's first black mayor who was also Virginia's first black governor, was endorsed by the Dispatch in his campaign last year.
 
Calls to officials in the Richmond and Henrico County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People branches were not returned.