“Yeah, that segregation, with its black neighborhoods, black-owned businesses, well-attended black schools,
and negligible crime rate was so bad...”
Ever seen a “whites only” water fountain? I have. I lived in Selma Alabama in 1965. I’m white and I don’t have fond memories of the life there & then! Not buying the “blacks had it better in the 50s” argument.
I was raised in the 50s, in Texas,
and know whereof I speak. It wasn’t
perfect but it beats what we have now.
I notice you don’t deny that blacks are
resegregating. Is it different if you want it?
The progression has been a mixture of good and bad. And Alabama 1969 was not representative of the USA. If we projected the sexuality of a 1960 microcosm of the isolated valleys in W. Virginia one could project that “America is an incestuous country” or that Utah is a Polygamous state because they tolerate isolated sects of original Mormonism.
Photography can be quite revealing. Try and find the contrast photos of Ferguson, Mo. 1954 vs. 2014 - same street corner.
1954= Well dressed black FAMILIES with men in suits with hats and women wearing pretty modest dresses holding the hands of THEIR children going about their daily business. Clean streets and tidy businesses in the background. These children had moms AND dads and they behaved much differently because of that structure.
2014= Feral savage looking 3rd world ruffians attempting to loot or destroy the family businesses their fathers, grandfathers or great-grand dads had built. Women looking shameful in attention seeking clothing, or the lack thereof. Kids running amok. Disintegration and chaos every where. And nearly everyone is humongous. Double the size of their grandparents, not due to no free-lunch milk, food stamps, etc.
Tragically, the Black family unit has nearly completely disintegrated in every major US city with stats as high as 90% of fatherless children in some cities. That is a terrible harmful regression, not progression.
Progression and upward mobility has resonated for a few and chaos for all the rest.