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What would America be like today (at least in the black community) if all Black Americans retained true equal rights from the end of the Civil War to today?
What would America be like today (at least in the black community) if all Black Americans retained true equal rights from the end of the Civil War to today?
I'm tossing your premise around in my mind and need to ask you how you see your dynamic unfolding.
If the freed slaves had not been shoved back into a subordinate citizen class, that would suggest an atmosphere where such a thing was supported by the majority of the whites, North and South...otherwise how would it have come about? So asking what would have happened requires completely reimagining general attitudes for the white people of the second half of the 19th Century. If we do assume this more tolerant society existed, then we must of course also assume that progress in racial relations was greatly accelerated and that today the third Monday in January would not be a national holiday...there having been no need for a Civil Rights movement in the '60's.
Another way to look at it is to appply the example of the North to the entire nation. Jim Crow was not applied in the Northern States, but blacks were not embraced and accepted as equals on a social or cultural level. In theory they were political equals, but of course the nation's politics were dominated by the agendas and concerns of the controlling whites, that you have a voice does not insure your having an audience. In the South, where "separate but equal" always meant separate but never really equal, they were still defacto inferiors. In the North they were theoretical equals but defacto invisible.
So, what if they had been theoretical equals but defacto invisible everywhere? I suppose a different sort of movement would have eventually emerged, one not based on demanding civil rights, but demanding dignity and greater inclusion, something akin to the PC movements of the last few decades. I would think that such a movement would have its origins in the South due to the much greater percentage of blacks in that population.
The conditions I am describing suggest that the first Century after the Civil War would still have featured segregated housing patterns, so things like forced busing and affirmative action would still be real possibilties as part of the dignity movement agenda.
What would America be like today (at least in the black community) if all Black Americans retained true equal rights from the end of the Civil War to today?
There would be a lot more African Americans in Congress and in State legislatures in the South. During Reconstruction, there was a surge of African Americans going into politics, but that progress was lost after Reconstruction ended and Jim Crow began.
Slums would be integrated, like they were before redlining corralled AA's in the inner cities. Neighborhoods everywhere would be much more integrated, so that school bussing wouldn't be necessary. The conditions that required it wouldn't exist. Likely many of us would have AA supervisors at work. University faculty would be more integrated. The historic Black colleges might not exist, because they wouldn't have been necessary to found in the first place.
Neighborhoods everywhere would be much more integrated, so that school bussing wouldn't be necessary. The conditions that required it wouldn't exist.
Not sure I understand
Blacks did have civil rights in the north, but this did not prevent neighbourhoods there becoming de facto segregated. Since these matters were largely decided at State or local level, how does the preservation of Black civil rights in the South serve to prevent de facto segregation in northern cities - or even necessarily in southern ones?
FTM, American Jews always had full civil rights, yet this did not stop them suffering all sorts of discrimination in housing, education etc down to the latter half of the 20C. See the Gregory Peck film Gentleman's Agreement for a good portrayal of it. Why would Blacks do any better?
Absolutely no change, and depending on how you define government programs to encourage "freedom", perhaps worse.
You seem to think a state of mind and societal seperations can be legislated by government decree, and I assume that because you use the words "retained". It's a mistake that some in our government are still making today. You are talking about a class of citizen that was considered property, a farm implement (at least in the south), before the civil war suddenly brought into equality. By all intents and purpposes, they were equal in the eyes of the law when they received citizenship in 1868. In the eyes of others they were not, and that would have not changed unless you are asking us to consider what if some supernatural event were to happen, changing centuries of thoughts, in an immediate act. The government has struggled on how to encourage equality for over a century, in order to speed up the process. Many of these laws and decrees where helpful, but sometimes they have been unintentially harmful. Voting laws, seperate but equal laws, busing for desegregation, and, finally, affirmative action programs and government assistance programs. All well intentioned programs intended to promote equality. I have my own opinions on if the last two programs mentioned have helped or harmed americans of color.
In the end, equality between the races is a social issue, not a government legislation issue.
Blacks did have civil rights in the north, but this did not prevent neighbourhoods there becoming de facto segregated. Since these matters were largely decided at State or local level, how does the preservation of Black civil rights in the South serve to prevent de facto segregation in northern cities - or even necessarily in southern ones?
FTM, American Jews always had full civil rights, yet this did not stop them suffering all sorts of discrimination in housing, education etc down to the latter half of the 20C. See the Gregory Peck film Gentleman's Agreement for a good portrayal of it. Why would Blacks do any better?
This is a major myth.Blacks did NOT have equal rights in the North. There were several "white only" policies in the Northern cities.As a matter of fact,even TODAY the most racially segregated states are in the NORTH not the South.
This is a major myth.Blacks did NOT have equal rights in the North. There were several "white only" policies in the Northern cities.As a matter of fact,even TODAY the most racially segregated states are in the NORTH not the South.
Which rather proves my point, doesn't it?
If northern cities remain racially segregated after fifty years worth of Civil Rights legislation, why is there any reason to suppose that the retention of more civil rights by southern Blacks, back in the 1860s, would have prevented this? After all, at best the southern Blacks could only have had the same rights as northern ones had.
In the long run People are the ones that make laws and religions, so if all blacks had "equal rights" in 1865, the majoritarian white society would have circunvented such laws and the result would have been the same. The history of the US is packed with similar cases.
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