Breaking the Left's Race-Colored Glasses J

January 16, 2021 By John Steinreich

The Civil Rights Movement reached its pinnacle in the 1960s with the passage of federal laws that dismantled segregation, voter suppression, and housing discrimination.  Black Americans suffered 100 years of second-class citizenship after the Civil War, and we did our whole populace a tremendous mitzvah in tearing down the legal structures that prevented millions of our fellow citizens from fully accessing the benefits of being an American.  

The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. robbed the nation of its chief spokesman for peaceful change in race relations, but remarkably, from that fateful day in 1968 through roughly the next two and a half decades, tensions softened between blacks and whites.  The sociopolitical participation of black Americans expanded in ways that previous generations could scarcely imagine: major prime-time television series anchored by black lead actors; a black quarterback championing a Super Bowl winning team; and black mayors elected for the first time in our largest cities including Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York.  In that era, the now tragic figure of Bill Cosby became known as "America's dad"; Oprah Winfrey began her media career leading to astronomical popularity and prosperity; Michael Jackson, Prince, and Whitney Houston sold multiple millions of albums.  One could argue that the color line — famously decried by WEB Dubois as "problem of the 20th century" — was by the mid-1990s steadily being erased..............To Read More.....