It’s a cliche that people who came of age after the civil rights movement, can’t imagine the world of Jim Crow and segregation that preceded them. To a lesser extent, at 45–I turn 46 on Wednesday–I find it slightly hard to explain what America’s racial environment was like in the late 80s and early nineties when I was the same age as some of my new colleagues at TPM. While in some ways the country had advanced from the 60s and 70s–some indicia were encouraging such as more black elected officials–there was a deep well of despair about race relations in ways that now seem puzzling if not quaint.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=146942