Via Moyers & Company:
The desegregation of America’s schools was one of the crowning achievements of the civil rights movement.
But getting there was a wrenching process that threatened to tear apart the very fabric of our society. In the South, the first African-American kids to attend what had previously been all-white schools were greeted with rioters and death threats. Federal troops were required to assure their safety.
Desegregation’s impact is still felt in our politics; whites’ hostility toward the process was a driving force behind Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” fueling the kind of dog-whistle politics tha...
