Nationalization Era3. What was "white backlash"? Give an example of an event that demonstrates "white backlash" and why.
“White backlash” refers to the antagonistic, often violent response of white supremacists to civil rights and social justice. Although the term might apply especially well to the 1960s, the era in which President Johnson passed the landmark Civil Rights Act, white backlash can easily be traced back to the Reconstruction Era and the rise of the KKK. Rather than welcome the potential for an egalitarian and harmonious society, white supremacists clung to racist beliefs and used whatever means possible to retain political and social hegemony. Any resistance to positive social change related to racial parity, social justice, and civil rights can be considered “white backlash.”
In the 1960s, white backlash took on new forms. As legislation at the federal level turned the tide against white supremacy throughout the nation, groups like the KKK once again used violence to assert their racist beliefs. The Mississippi Burning incident of 1963 and the assassination of Medgar Evers that same year are just a few of numerous cases in which peaceful civil rights activism ended violently because of white backlash. Likewise, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. can be framed as white backlash. The prevailing negative rhetoric about civil rights leader Malcolm X shows how white backlash was often ideological...
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