Given the lack of outrage against Palestinians after Sirhan Sirhan murdered RFK, I think there is a tendency to overstate the impact on anti Black sentiments that having Kennedy assassinated by an African-American would have. I would expect that we might have seen a radically different reaction from not only the Whites in the South, but by all African-Americans.
I suspect that there would be a quick backlash at first against African-Americans. Some Civil Rights legislation might be delayed until 1966 instead of 1964. But I also think there might be a major backlash within the African-American community. I think moderate Blacks would have stood against militant Blacks like the Black Panthers. Leaders like Martin Luther King would have included in their campaigns much more stress on high moral values and an embracing of the general American culture of the time, with much less tolerance within the Black community for anything smacking of creating an alternative African-American culture.
In the long run, I believe that the Civil Rights movement would have proceeded even faster, despite having an initial delay. Things like Affirmative Action and forced busing to achieve desegregation that did more to preserve animosity by Whites towards Blacks wouldn't have been imposed. In the absence of well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective laws that attempted to cram a sense of equality down peoples' throats, equal rights and treatment for all would have come about as the result of a genuine change in peoples' attitudes.
I suspect that there would be a quick backlash at first against African-Americans. Some Civil Rights legislation might be delayed until 1966 instead of 1964. But I also think there might be a major backlash within the African-American community. I think moderate Blacks would have stood against militant Blacks like the Black Panthers. Leaders like Martin Luther King would have included in their campaigns much more stress on high moral values and an embracing of the general American culture of the time, with much less tolerance within the Black community for anything smacking of creating an alternative African-American culture.
In the long run, I believe that the Civil Rights movement would have proceeded even faster, despite having an initial delay. Things like Affirmative Action and forced busing to achieve desegregation that did more to preserve animosity by Whites towards Blacks wouldn't have been imposed. In the absence of well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective laws that attempted to cram a sense of equality down peoples' throats, equal rights and treatment for all would have come about as the result of a genuine change in peoples' attitudes.