t
is a good example of the political truth in that what is a belief in
the mind of the people is not the same thing as what is stipulated right
out in the law. After the Civil War, people in the south were
confronted with a new idea; that was that black people were not
property. They were people and the men, the ex-slaves, were to be given
the vote, and the white women were not. This was a major change that was
a time-consuming process. Can you imagine telling someone in the south
in 1860 that one day, in 2009, in a 149 years, a black man would
actually be elected President of the United States.It would have been
incomprehensible. They would never have believed it. So, the idea of
equal rights was just too much for them just after the Civil War. A
Supreme Court Judge, I believe it was Thurgood Marshall, said something
like, "90 years is enough". This meant that the people of the south had
been given 90-odd years since the Civil War, to "live", by their
actions, that black people were equal. It was just possible now, after
90 years, for the people to progress through a mine-field of mental
challenges to truly except this idea. It really couldn't have been done
as well in any other time but the 1960's. It could have been forced but
it never would have stuck.
Hoped I helped.
