Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

by Michael Harriot

Two years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act—barely a year after the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act—54 percent of white Americans said they thought the civil rights marches were “not justified,” according to an August 1966 Harris poll.1 In October, 85 percent of whites responded that the “demonstrations by negroes on civil rights” hurt the “advancement of negro rights.”2 By June 1969, only 32 percent of respondents felt Black protesters were “trying to be helpful.”3 Because of the civil rights movement, the country finally began to address the disparities, inequality, and terrorism that were the by-product of a quadruple century of racial oppression. But when all was said and done, the majority of white people in America had reached one conclusion: Something was wrong with Black people.