1980's Lifestyles and Social Trends | Race Relations

The New Conservative Climate.

Although civil rights leaders had believed that the movement toward social and racial equality for minorities was slowing in the 1970s, the determined conservatism of the 1980s Reagan era caught them unprepared. The conservative mood that settled across some sections of the American public in this decade seemed to be a backlash against the civil rights movement that had been building since the land-mark victories of the 1960s. Many white middle-class voters found Reagan's conservatism appealing because they feared that social change in America had been too rapid and too extensive. As a candidate, Ronald Reagan had criticized school busing and affirmative action programs; as president he continued to exhibit a distaste for civil rights activism and for some of the gains that activism had achieved. During his two terms in office he met only once with the Congressional Black Caucus, and black leaders...