Originally Posted by Jankinonya:
Even when you get to the 50's and 60's the south was still very much segregated and racist. The north had moved forward and blacks were not treated with the kind of hate and bigotry that you found here at that same time. How many blacks were still being hung or beaten in Chicago in the 50's, 60's? The south is and was a very racist section of this country. To try and say its not our fault because to the mean old north's treatment of us after a war that has been over for more than 150 years is ridiculous.
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You are right about the 50's and 60's. But you have to remember a couple of things. Most blacks lived in the South. How were conditions for Blacks in say New York City, outside of Harlem? While the discrimination lines are drawn mostly along black/white lines in the South, in the East and North similar lines are drawn over geographical ethnicity. The Irish, Jews, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Chinese/Asians have all been subject to horrible discrimination on both the East and West Coasts and in the North. New Yorkers never seem to understand black/white discrimination, yet they have Chinese, Jewish, Italian, Hispanic, and other ethnic "ghettos" that maintain their "racial purity".
The 1960's and 70's were a huge turning point for the South as far as race relations. Yet long after the national guard was called into Arkansas in 1968 to put down race riots, I watched the people of Boston have similar riots in 1988 over busing of not only blacks, but of Irish into Italian schools. I remember an incident in about 1986, where a black kid walked into a white neighborhood somewhere in NY State, and ended up dead for no other reason than he was black.
I agree with you, though. The Civil War was a long time ago, and we need to get over it. But heck, we can't even get together as a local community.