Oprah Winfrey has removed the book "The Education of Little Tree" from her book website, which is one of the most influential book-selling sites in the world. "The Education of Little Tree," published in 1976, purports to be the autobiography of an Indian child who is raised by his grandparents. As it turns out, the book was written by Asa Carter, a pro-segregation racist who wrote speeches for George Wallace. Carter later wrote "The Rebel Outlaw Josey Wales," a novel which became a successful movie.

My father, Jerry Kopel, met Asa Carter when they were first year pre-journalism students at the University of Colorado in 1948. A 1998 column by my dad looks at the paradox of a man who was a virulent racist, yet who was also deeply proud of his real-life Indian grandfather. Did writing "Little Tree" provide Carter with some redemption for the terrible things that he did in the 1950s and 1960s? My father hopes so.