PS And Virginia was one of the "easy" states! It was not one of the seven holdouts talked about in the next two posts.
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There was some committee where Agnew was the nominal head, but Secretary of Labor George Shultz did the real work. They set up "State Advisory Committees," an intentionally bland name, in each of the seven southern states still holding out against desegregation.Being Nixon: A Man Divided, Evan Thomas, 2015.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Z...e:Nixon inauthor:Evan inauthor:Thomas&f=false
' . . . Shultz would ask the attorney general what he planned to do about the schools in the South. "I am attorney general and I will enforce the law," Mitchell would say, gruffly, puffing on his pipe, and then leave the room. . . "
To their credit, doing the hardest state first.New York Times, Opinion, "How a Republican Desegregated the South's Schools," editorial by George P. Shultz, Jan. 8, 2003.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2003/01/08/opinion/how-a-republican-desegregated-the-south-s-schools.html
" . . . With the president's support, we formed biracial committees in each of the seven states. The idea was to reach out to key leaders. Many were reluctant to serve, the whites fearing too close an association with desegregation, the blacks concerned that the committee might be a sham.
"The first group to come to Washington was from Mississippi. . . "
This is part of the "conservative" backlash, which managed to win over part of the religious right, at least for a while. Doesn't seem either one! Neither all that conservative nor all that religious. Not to me it doesn't."The Real Origins of the Religious Right," Politico, Randall Balmer, May 27, 2014.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133
" . . . In 1969, the first year of desegregation, the number of white students enrolled in public schools in Holmes County [Mississippi] dropped from 771 to 28; the following year, that number fell to zero. . . "
Exactly. She was not the President, and any Presidential power she may have exercised as a result was illegal. If Wilson was unable to fulfill his duties (and he was unable).
the failure of Radical Republicans in Congress to be able to carry through a real Reconstruction led to a century of a racial injustice. Too high a cost.
Maybe at the time of the 12th Amendment (ratified 1804) which changed the Electoral College? And I freely acknowledge that a more Parliamentary system merely has a different set of problems from a presidential system.When do you envisage simple majority impeachment being adopted? . . .
Maybe at the time of the 12th Amendment (ratified 1804) which changed the Electoral College? And I freely acknowledge that a more Parliamentary system merely has a different set of problems from a presidential system.
I do remain hopeful that Reconstruction could have gone MUCH better. In fact, spilling into our century so that the South was relatively advanced regarding both progressive economics and racial justice, and the North relatively behind the times. I mean, the North would be exactly where they are now. The South would just be further ahead in these important areas.
It might avoid the devil's bargain in the south in which a relatively small number of people got to be the economic and political elites. And the poor whites? Well, they were thrown the sop of racism.And even if Blacks did manage to go on voting a bit longer, why should that affect the economy?
And the south probably needs a Reconstruction which has a few generals who are the equivalent of Douglas MacArthur in Japan.