Formal civil rights victories left the soul of America unredeemed

Evidence

The story that Baldwin and Dr. King had both told in 1968 about the bitter failures of the civil rights movement had not taken a turn for the better. America had not listened. Despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the bold declarations of the Great Society, by the mid-seventies the heroic and tragic efforts of the black freedom movement to transform the country had fallen apart. Deepening poverty engulfed large segments of black America as social scientists now talked about a black underclass. A raging carceral state, with its police often menacing black communities in the name of law and order, seemed to swallow communities whole, and the belief that white people still mattered more than others continued to choke the life out of American democracy. The black freedom movement had, in some significant ways, transformed America. But, as historian Vincent Harding wrote, “the soul of America had not been redeemed. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 447

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the causal arc of the ‘after times’: legal victories produced visible change while underlying racial structures hardened.
• XREF: The failed-reckoning arc ties to the reader’s framing of the after times as a period after a failed reckoning.