The Conscience of a Liberal (Paul Krugman)
– Clipping Loc. 1158-63 | Added on Sunday, December 30, 2007, 01:44 PM
movement inevitably brought itself a much wider range of enemies.
Enterprising politicians took notice. Ronald Reagan, who had opposed
the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Act—calling the latter
"humiliating to the South"—ran for governor of California in part on
a promise to repeal the state's fair housing act. "If an individual
wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting
his house," Reagan said, "he has a right to do so." Above all,
public perception of the civil rights movement became entangled with
the rising tide of urban disorder—a linkage that served to
legitimate and harden resistance to further civil rights progress.