Business elites backed racial moderation primarily to protect profits

Evidence

Just a decade before, such an alliance between the city’s privileged white elite and Jim-Crowed black community might have seemed unthinkable. But with the political changes of the postwar era, the two groups realized that they had much in common. Together, they would dominate Atlanta’s politics for the next two decades. … For their own reasons, both halves of the new coalition supported a progressive politics centered on economic growth, civic pride, and—to the surprise of outside observers—a moderate pace of racial change. Black Atlantans pressed for desegregation for obvious reasons. Affluent whites, meanwhile, acquiesced to limited changes in hopes of presenting a positive public image for themselves, their city, and, most important, their business interests. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 88

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Sit-ins finally made class privilege fail to shield white elites from civil rights costs — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 461; Student activists weaponized Atlanta’s progressive image against its own moderates — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 415; Oppression of racialized others primarily serves the wealthy, not ordinary white people — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 1410 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Sit-ins taught businessmen that racial progressivism hurt their profits #contradicts (0.90) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 416
• Racial solidarity deliberately replaces class solidarity to protect capitalist elites. #corroborates (0.85) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 958
• Oppression of racialized others primarily serves the wealthy, not ordinary white people #corroborates (0.84) — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1410
• Racial ideas were deployed to deflect economic class resentment away from elites #expands (0.82) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 711
• Racial ideology functions as a labor discipline for capital #corroborates (0.80)
• Law creates racial categories to enable plunder and profit. #corroborates (0.75)
• Race ideology overrides rational profit calculations in South African economy #contradicts (0.72)