Early Life
Dawson was born in Columbia, South Carolina in then-heavily Democratic South Carolina, his parents helped organize the state's first GOP precincts. Dawson claimed his political interest came from attending a Barry Goldwater speech in 1964, and first volunteered for Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. He also considers the desegregation of his high-school in the 1960s as a major event that inspired him to enter politics, as Dawson was fiercely anti-desegregation. Dawson commented in an interview,
| “ | I, in the 1960s was a product of school segregation, where we took our schools and completely disbanded them, and made racial equality. Fifty-Fifty. And the kids had no choices. They closed Booker T. Washington, Blease, down here. A pretty good school. Closed it and sent the students to A. C. Flora, across town. And they did it over the summer because the laws had been changed by the politicians. ...I will tell you it was a pretty harsh environment. Government reached into my life and grabbed me and shook me at the age of fifteen. I remember how blatant it was that government just thought that they knew better, that government just thought they knew better what to do in my school. ...But from that day on I’ve always been politically active, and wanted my voice heard. | ” |
Dawson graduated from the University of South Carolina.
Read more about this topic: Katon Dawson
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