Difference between the North and South in the 60s with regards to African Americans?

Question

A friend told me that in the South a white didn't mind a black as a neighbor but didn't want him having any political power or status in general. However, in the North the whites didn't mind blacks having power in there own caucuses but didn't want them living in their neighborhood. It sounded strange to me, is it true? Any links to support this?

Answer 1

I can only tell you what I have seen in my own life...in the 1960s and 1970s I lived in the South and the North...the Northern people were scared to death of blacks and avoided them at all costs...in the South people who were black and white were friends and associated every day together...and I find that still to be true to a great extent...the North likes the IDEA of blacks but not the person...the South likes the person but not the IDEA of blacks having influence...so I suppose your friend is correct...I was there and I saw it all and still do....

Answer 2

I don't know where you would find links, but having lived through it, I would say it was pretty accurate. I grew up in the North and moved south in 1971 after being in the Army in Texas and Oklahoma in the late 60's.
The North believed that the south was violently prejudiced as proved by the school and busing confrontations in the south. Then the separate black neighborhoods exploded in Boston and Chicago and LA and Northern Whites were bewildered. You probably need to go archival copies of newspapers at the time of MLK's assassination Chicago and in Boston at the time of busing to get a record of comments by Northerners at the time of strongest contrast.
Most White Northerners growing up in the 50's-60's had very little contact with Blacks who lived and worked in separate neighborhoods. Most White Southerners had constant contact with Blacks who worked in menial jobs throughout the society.

Answer 3

There's truth in it, but it's too much a generalization to have much meaning. The 'north' was far too big and too diversified by the 60s to fit any broad statement. The 'south' had come a long way, and while progress had been made in the racism [white] area, it still had a long way to go.

Blacks in the south probably experienced something akin to feelings illegal aliens might express today. Okay for grunt, dirty jobs, not okay for jobs of a cleaner, higher paying sort.

Answer 4

Yeah, that's true; The north for the most part, had more money than the poor south. So a rich person didn't want someone who's known for living in the poor part of town living in their neighborhood. "There goes the neighborhood." Sybil the soothsayer has a good answer.

Answer 5

You simply cannot sum up racial feelings in a sentance of too.

It is too complex.

The feelings were all over the board.

Often people will say things like "I have nothing against blacks, I just don't want them living with us."

Well, if you really have nothing against them, why don't you want them living next to you?

Just remeber, race hate is not confined to the South, you see it everywhere.

Joe