When considering people in a different time and place we should always recognise that we have no right to feel superior, just because we are fortunate enough to live in a time and place where the views they held and the things they did are seen as wrong. We have no reason for assuming that in their circumstances we wouldn't have been just the same.

At the same time we should recognise that there were people at that time who did not go along with the prevailing racist assumptions. Going along with the majority was a choice, then as now, not an inescapable obligation.