Word: white
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Southern whites too were quick to see what was happening. In many small towns, the seemingly cheery acquiescence to Northern laws was in reality a cagey poker-face cover for continued Southern resistance. Bitter experience with the Northern press had convinced the whites that the best way to clamp down on Negro progress was to clamp down on Negro progress was to keep the press away; and the best way to do that was to avoid trouble. So the "White Only" signs disappeared, and so did the press...
Even before the white backlash set in, a number of other factors had conspired to make the Southern "racial situation" less visible than it had been in the '50's. After the civil rights acts passed in the early '60's, most Northern whites breathed a sigh of moral relief. Most of the tangible evidences of bigotry were gone: federal inspectors found few "Colored" drinking fountains left. The "White Only" posters were reluctantly removed from the train stations and busses; the black names made their way onto the voting lists; and whites and blacks settled down to the teeth-gritting...
...most Southern Negroes soon realized that these tentative victories were in reality a setback. The evening TV news report had been one of the civil rights movement's primary weapons, but now much of its punch was gone. There were no more marches, few boycotts, little redneck backlash. The white Northern conscience turned to other things. Students began to work against the war; white liberals set to work in the ghettos. With no tangible goblins to fight, the Southern Negroes struggled for ways to keep the nation's support mobilized...
...there was one area where tokenism was not acceptable. Complete integration of the schools -- not merely the few black faces dotting the formerly-white classrooms -- was essential, the key to all future progress...
...have to look too hard to see why. White schools in the South are no gems -- Alabama ranks 49th among the school systems of the country, and Mississippi proudly follows at number 50. But the eagerness of black children to get into the white schools suggests how bad the black schools must be. And the suggestion of how bad they must be is only a pale hint of how bad they...