The government under President Donald Trump is bending the arc of US history in a new direction, away from the civil rights focus of the past 60 plus years.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/62976508

Just 10 years ago the US was still seen as being progressive and racism was slowly becoming a thing of the past… and not even in 10 years all the major civil rights achievements of rhe past 70 years are being thrown out so fast it is making my head spin.

  • twice_hatch@midwest.socialEnglish
    101·
    1 day ago

    Updegrove drew a parallel between now and the period beginning during Reconstruction when post-Civil War advances like the 13th Amendment were hurt by the rise of White Supremacy and Jim Crow.

    Oh today I learned something. I didn’t know Reconstruction was a loss for civil rights

    Please be gentle with me, I learned American History from the American school system so there’s a lot of gaps… I did watch all of Forrest Gump though.

    • Zombie-Mantis@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      13 hours ago

      I think he’s talking about the backlash to the progresses in civil rights, not that Reconstruction itself was a loss for Civil Rights, but that it was undermined by white supremacists, and later dismantled after the abrupt end of Reconstruction.

    • ristoril_zip@lemmy.zipEnglish
      6·
      1 day ago

      The same federal laws from Reconstruction applied across the whole country. Except there were “creative” legislators, executives, lawyers, and citizen organizations in the South that found loopholesto exploit. Most people in the North didn’t do that (obviously there were exceptions).

      Add to that the violent, murderous rampages that occurred against successful black people and neighborhoods, and “Reconstruction” was very complex in its implementation.