100 years, but the truth of it is even more gruesome.
Federal anti-segregation legislation even for public transport was passed in the 1870s (struck down, ironically, by SCOTUS). We elected Black Congressmen in the South in the 1870s and 1880s - something that wouldn’t happen again until 1969.
We backslid for decades because of a mixture of political maneuvering and welcoming the former slaver scum back into national life, until the white majority got tired of the fight and let the fuckers dictate policy on the Black minority, at least on the state level.
You can win the war and lose the peace - peace is often a much longer and more exhausting fight.
Reconstruction needed at least 50 more years before it ended, instead the feds threw in the towel, and rights got snatched away so fast, with too few caring cause they were white, and weren’t living in the south.
Even ten years would’ve resulted in less backsliding. Hell, even four more years would’ve been a godsend, considering that Grant’s second term ended just as South Carolina experienced a literal white supremacist coup.
We needed more, much more, but we couldn’t even get a sliver more.
Maintaining the enthusiasm of the mass of politically detached folk is miserable work, with marginal returns for success but massive damages from failure.
i keep hearing about “equal rights for black people” during the US Civil war, but then Rosa Park happened some 200 years later …
100 years, but the truth of it is even more gruesome.
Federal anti-segregation legislation even for public transport was passed in the 1870s (struck down, ironically, by SCOTUS). We elected Black Congressmen in the South in the 1870s and 1880s - something that wouldn’t happen again until 1969.
We backslid for decades because of a mixture of political maneuvering and welcoming the former slaver scum back into national life, until the white majority got tired of the fight and let the fuckers dictate policy on the Black minority, at least on the state level.
You can win the war and lose the peace - peace is often a much longer and more exhausting fight.
Reconstruction needed at least 50 more years before it ended, instead the feds threw in the towel, and rights got snatched away so fast, with too few caring cause they were white, and weren’t living in the south.
Even ten years would’ve resulted in less backsliding. Hell, even four more years would’ve been a godsend, considering that Grant’s second term ended just as South Carolina experienced a literal white supremacist coup.
We needed more, much more, but we couldn’t even get a sliver more.
Maintaining the enthusiasm of the mass of politically detached folk is miserable work, with marginal returns for success but massive damages from failure.