'Wilson’s rabid racism and implementation of segregationist policies in the federal government are routinely ignored by progressives today. There was nothing progressive about segregation. If it was progressive then were Bob Jones University, Jerry Falwell, Jesse Helms or Strom Thurmond progressives? Are white southerners who today defend the old South and wave the Confederate flag progressive? People do not fit into neat little ideological boxes. Segregation was a conservative attempt to defend the old racist order and in that sense Wilson was a conservative, not progressive on the issue of race.