Summary

By the 1960s, the civil rights movement was still in full swing; activists like Malcolm X and college student Angela Davis were speaking out against oppression and bringing light to the "inferiority complex forced on [Blacks] by White supremacy" (171). Birmingham, still a hotbed of racial tension, was the site of a church bombing in 1963 that claimed the lives of four young Black girls, prompting the White House, occupied now by Lyndon B. Johnson, to act fast on passing civil rights legislation. While the legislation represented a win "on paper" for Black Americans, in reality it created a "backlash of more racist ideas" (172, 173). White people now declared racism to be over, seemingly ignoring the "hundreds of years of head starts White people had in America" (172). A poll taken by Alabama governor George Wallace, who publicly stood for segregation, had "100,000 letters of support" in hand...