How does racism serve as an external conflict in The Water is Wide?

The book is written about the time period of the mid to late 1960s in America when the Civil Rights Movement is peaking, characterized by radical behaviors and shifts in perceptions in the whole country but especially in the South where racism is notoriously widespread. Pat Conroy is admittedly part of the Old South prejudices which perpetuate the practice of racism in all aspects of society. It is not until Pat has graduated college that he begins to explore alternate behaviors and ways of thinking to begin the elimination of racism in the South. Unfortunately, Pat's naiveté encounters members of the rigid school establishment fighting against desegregation and clinging to the old ways of life where they could keep black people in their designated places and live in what they perceive to be the natural order of things. Ironically, Pat encounters black parents on Yamacraw who feel Pat is a better teacher for their children than the black woman teacher also working at the school just because Pat is a white man. This form of reverse discrimination is unsettling to Pat who feels he cannot teach in this type of environment because his presence denies respect to the current, and any future, black professional who takes a teaching position on Yamacraw.