The modern Catholic anti-abortion movement was born in white enclaves and shaped by the politics of white flight and anti-integration activism. The sight of white Catholic teens wearing clothes emblazoned with Donald Trump’s racially inflammatory brand at the March for Life, marks a vital connection that has shaped modern conservatism and the Republican Party.

Racial politics undergirded the anti-abortion movement from the outset and continues to shape its imagery and concerns. The modern Catholic anti-abortion movement emerged in the early 1960s in response to heightened agitation by legal and medical organizations and mainline Protestant and Jewish groups for abortion law reform. Crucially, this organized anti-abortion activism was cradled and nurtured in white Catholic enclaves in and around Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, and New York City (among other places) and at the height of white flight. Covington Catholic High School is part of this history. The overwhelmingly white campus is mere minutes away but cordoned off from the predominantly black public schools of downtown Cincinnati.