Beyond his sympathies for the Confederacy and the description of marginalization of African-Americans within his works, Foote retained complex, patriarchal and sympathetic views of African Americans and race relations. Foote continued to develop his perception of the travesties that befell blacks in Southern life, a culture that he would later call "perhaps the most racist society in the United States." In his earlier life, Foote had claimed to know more about the life of African Americans in the South than James Baldwin: "I told some interviewer I knew a hell of a lot more about negroes than Baldwin even began to know."