Reagan’s 1980 election closed the civil rights movement’s window of possibility

Evidence

The fact that Ralph Abernathy, Dr. King’s closest confidant, and Hosea Williams, one of King’s lieutenants, endorsed him only underscored for many how far we had fallen. To Baldwin, it showed the depth of our own madness. Reagan’s appearance on the national stage signaled the door slamming shut on the window of possibility opened by the civil rights movement twenty-five years earlier. Reagan was a captivatingly sinister representative of the new world born in the aftermath of the betrayal of the black freedom struggle. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 494

Categorization

• XREF: This is the pivotal moment of ‘the after times’ — the door slamming shut on the window of possibility — the precise mechanism of a failed reckoning.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does the parallel with King lieutenants endorsing Reagan map onto modern figures who make the same kinds of deals with the after times?