He liked to hurt them.

That’s one of those things that people don’t like to mention. Despite the oppression of Jim Crow and the ugly history of slavery, throughout the first half of the 20th century black people were closing in on their white counterparts with respect to education, income, nuclear family structure, etc.

The major problem of the Civil Rights Era was that it was paired with a narrative of overlasting racial victimhood and a major expansion of the welfare state. In reality, if it had just been the removal of the institutional racism and discriminatory practices, then we would be in a much better state. Black people would have continued their track of economic advancement and intact families.