King was particularly unpopular among working-class and middle-class whites, both South and North, who were by 1966 already abandoning the Democratic Party and who never cared much for racial equality.

Well... you've pretty much written off most of American white society, since only a tiny percentage are ferried from polished mansions by smiling servants to palatial office suites staffed by indulgent toadies. During that time of endless programs and initiatives, most of Paycheck America saw itself - correctly - as sacrificial guinea pigs for social experiments designed by a remote, unsympathetic and privileged class which intended to provide the superficial gloss of "progress" to a system from which they drew fat premiums and for which they planned few substantive changes. The bulk of America's working and lower-middle-class knew their children would be bused, their jobs would be forfeit to quotas and their neighborhoods altered. Nothing better epitomizes this arrogant, destructive "revolution from above" than Judge Arthur Garrity, who instituted South Boston's violent busing ordeal - while sending his own children to private schools.

If we want real change, we all must sacrifice something. But that means all of us, including the arrogant Brainstorm Class. That's the biggest obstacle to real, lasting social improvement. It's much easier to blame the failures and backsliding on those churlish little peasants among the white working class, who, if they dare to defends themselves, are stamped "racist" and reviled.

It is interesting that 40 years on, selective memory of that time for so many has firmly taken root. As you correctly point out (and is ignored by others who suggest that you've "written off most of white society"), "most of white society" was comfortable with idea of black empowerment (improvement in education, employment, housing, etc.) as long as it didn't affect their lives.

Employment was fine, but not where it would impact their workplace. That included trade union jobs like plumbing and electrical work, manufacturing jobs like automotive steel, rubber -- where blacks might be employed, but rarely moved into upper supervisory or management roles. White collar employment -- including municipal jobs-- was also rare outside of black-owned businesses that served the community. Black workers were more likely to be limited to blue-collar work (sewer treatment, garbage collection, postal employees)where they would be competing with middle and lower class whites.

Education and housing were and are inextricably linked. Since schools were populated based on the neighborhood they were situated in, black schools were in black neighborhoods. Redlining of both school districts and mortgages, along with development in the 1930s and 40s of public housing, kept black neighborhoods -- and schools -- black. It yielded exactly the same result in the north as in the south: rigidly segregated schools. If and when blacks moved into a previously white neighborhood, it set off a chain reaction of whites moving out and blacks moving into areas previously closed to them, as the neighborhood was now "tainted" and included in previously redlined areas. Further, school districts used the excuse of "low tax bases" to fail to provide adequate funding for these segregated "neighborhood" schools. No money? No books, no repairs, no services, the worst teachers and no standards. Whites, meanwhile, moved to the suburbs or other "protected" areas. Contrary to the suggestion above, busing was not the first alternative, but the last, when "white flight" made busing the only meaningful and effective option -- and remember, that black children were bused into white neighborhood schools, too; it was not a one-way whites-only problem. For proof of how resistant northern middle and lower class whites were to integration (in their supposedly "free" and embracing society) look at ANY of the fights against school busing in ANY northern city. They rival the most vicious scenes people have come to associate with desegregating southern schools. That a particular judge sent his children to private school is no surprise, many other whites of all professions did the same thing if they could not move to restricted neighborhoods.

Although the commenter above wants to paint white Americans as "sacrificial guinea pigs" in fact, white America was really asked to sacrifice very little. The brutal fact is they did not want to be "integrated" any more than southern whites did. That the exact same problems existed north of the Mason-Dixon line and west of the Mississippi is proof enough that all America was as divided as the "whites only" or "colored only" signs depicted in the south. That that division existed in the north was not a surprise to King or any of the other civil rights leaders before him or since. Racism knows no boundaries.

Understand also that "black power" or a more "aggressive" approach to gaining, taking (by any means necessary, perhaps) was not a new or isolated phenomenom. It was there during abolition and continues today. The idea that "all deliberate speed" -- which meant slower than molasses in January -- was increasingly an unsatisfactory means for delay or even subterfuge for the country to fail to deliver on its promise of equality. King was not the only civil rights leader whose less aggressive approach was seen as playing into the hands of government and the white establishment.

While Risen's book is an excellent "tick-tock" of what happened in the days surrounding the King assassination, I find his conclusions troublesome. Revisionist history seems to be in vogue these days. Your post, Mr. Shugrue, provides some very necessary reality checks. Thank you.

This is an interesting string, though I am left with a strange sense of deja vu in reading SF Curt's comments. The desegregation battles were not primarily about busing. Already by the 1960s, a large proportion of the white student population rode buses, often long distances, to school. The prospect of putting little Johnny or Jane on a bus generated little opposition--until school desgregation became an issue. As Julian Bond put it, "it's not the bus, it's us."

The limousine liberal line had a compelling, common sense appeal, but by the time of the Boston busing crisis, as a result of the Supreme Court's decision in Milliken v. Bradley striking down metropolitan-wide school desegregation remedies, Judge Garrity had no choice but to order an intradistrict busing remedy. The fact that Boston had dozens of separate all white suburban school districts gave wealthy and working-class whites alike the opportunity to dodge desegregation orders by moving. Many did.

Both Oleeb and Jade's points are well-taken. And I agree with Oleeb that we should not treat white public opinion as monolithic. But as William Chafe argued in his classic book, Civilities and Civil Rights, white indifference was often more effective than overt resistance in maintaining the status quo of racial inequality.

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