Americans were certainly content with the achievements of civil rights. What it promised and delivered—a rough kind of racial equality in the states that had lacked it—was an extraordinary achievement. There were unexpected collateral blessings, too, beyond a freer life for many blacks: the lifting of a burden of guilt from certain whites, scope for working women, a less anguished life for gays. What the reforms aspired and failed to do—produce “harmony” between the races or peace between the sexes—may have been beyond the power of any government reform to achieve.
