Racial segregation in the USA: Wokism in the 1950s and the resistance to social change

The human mind seems to have the tendency to forget or to ignore the past. And that is very unfortunate, for studying history provides a much wider understanding of our present times. Those who equate terrorism only with Islam and with people of Arab origin might benefit from learning about the suffragettes in the history of the UK, about ETA activity in the Basque Country in Spain, about the Jewish terrorism in Palestine in the 1940s, or about the IRA actions in Ireland. In the same manner, those westerners who are appalled by the way women are treated in various developing countries around the globe could also benefit from having a look at the way they were treated throughout history on the old Continent itself.

If the very recent conservative government in the UK served as a reminder that the people of colour can be as racist as the whites, history demonstrates the capacity that white Europeans have for oppressing women or for engaging in terrorist acts. But this does not exhaust the benefits of studying history, for it also displays the historical social development. Namely, if economic progress has brought about the supposedly civilized western society, this same historical process will have equal consequences in the developing world. Likewise, it demonstrates that in order to end terrorism one has to do away with the conditions that give rise to it.

But the most valuable aspect of studying history, arguably, is the projection of the future development of human society. Our past is full of parallels and precedents that allow us to make comparisons with our present times and to extrapolate the trajectories of socio-historical evolution. For a person with an open mind this provides the possibility of choosing the right side of history. And someone whose political beliefs are contradicted by the science of history will naturally dismiss it. As it stands, history is a friend to the progressives. And always has been. For our purposes here we shall delve into a rather simple topic - the not so distant history of racial segregation in the US.

In the middle of the last century we would find a very different society with a very distant social consciousness. Not as different as the medieval society, but different enough to disturb us with their social truths. Here, for example, is some insight into the 1950s in the USA:

“Whites in the 1950s were almost universally against interracial marriage. A 1958 Gallup poll found that 1% of southern whites and 5% of whites outside the south approved of interracial marriage. White families ‘appeared most often to refuse to have anything to do with children who entered into interracial marriages.’ This widespread opinion cut across class, educational and regional lines. In the 50s, whites were just as horrified about interracial marriage as they were in 1850. Yet ​why​ they denounced it varied greatly. Most whites were concerned with the degradation of racial purity and family honor as a result of the ‘mingling of blood’. This idea of ‘blood’ emanates from the enslavement of people based on race where ‘one drop’ of black blood made you colored.”

The absurdity of such notions - when looking from our contemporary perspective - hardly needs any further comments. But what a contemporary liberal mind might miss here is the fact that such a social position was once universally dominant across the entire society. And a progressive person of our days should not fall for the liberal illusion that if he or she had lived in the USA in the 1950s, he or she would still have held the same social beliefs as they do today. But let’s go back to our historical inquiry. For anyone who might be too eager to look upon the honor killings in the Islamic countries as a sign of cultural supremacy of the so-called western civilisation, here is a refreshing historical lesson:

“A white father in Virginia found a ​Life​ article on interracial marriage so distasteful he wrote to the magazine saying that, if his daughter ever so much as entertained the idea of intermarrying, ‘I would personally kill her and then myself, thus saving the state the expense of a hanging’. Another parent told their daughter's black fiance that he would be ‘signing [their] daughter’s death certificate’.”

And further on:

“Other parents went to extreme lengths to save their child and preserve their family’s dignity. A number of white parents, with the help from law enforcement, forced their daughters to see mental health professionals. For example, ‘when Helen Gallahar became romantically involved with a black lawyer in Ohio in 1950, her parents hired an attorney to have her judged insane, kidnapped her and held her prisoner, and after she escaped, hired a detective to find her. They ultimately disinherited her after she married’.”

It might be worth recalling that at that historical moment homosexuality was likewise considered as a mental disorder. And interestingly, whereas “the idea of sex between black men and white women repulsed whites, while casual and often exploitative sex between white men and black women was ignored or accepted”, within the anti-LGBT narrative a female couple is much more acceptable than a male one. So much for the rationality of the western civilization. But to return to the racial question, “mental health professionals and behavioral scientists, hid their biases by questioning the mental health of whites that decided to marry across racial lines rather than explicitly saying interracial marriage was inherently bad. [...] Some psychologists had Freudian explanations citing sexual deviancy or dysfunction as a motivation for intermarrying. More blamed unhappy childhoods, rebelliousness, distant parents or economic gains for poor white women.” In simple terms, if the others differ from you, it is obviously them that deviate from normality - there is simply no way that it could be you. Classic.

Not surprisingly, racial segregation in relationships had its counterpart in education. While completely incomprehensible today, the idea that different races should be educated separately was defended from all sides - from bankers, businessmen, politicians, teachers, and so on. “‘The mixing of races in the schools will mark the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it,’ South Carolina Gov. James F. Brynes, a New Deal Democrat and former U.S. secretary of state, told a group of white teachers in 1954.” And here we are, in 2025, with racial segregation in education far behind us and with no end of civilization in sight. And this, of course, was merely one from a long list of proclamations throughout history of the end of the world. Whether it was due to the overthrow of the monarchies, due to the women’s right to vote, or due to gay marriage - human progress successfully continues its course. The conservative people often confound the natural death of the old social world with the downfall of civilization.

And there are other very common themes within the reactionary rhetoric, outside of the very dramatic “end of civilization” argument. We also constantly find the unwillingness to accept that the large numbers of progressive people have an organic political stance. In other words, there always have to be the sinister protagonists who instigate and brainwash the masses into these destructive ideas and actions. It is not possible that millions of Europeans are genuinely against the genocide in Gaza - there must be Qatar or some organized Islamic group behind the protests. It is not possible that millions of citizens of the US hate Trump - those protesters must be made up of terrorists and illegal immigrants. It is not possible that teachers in Eastern Europe could protest against low wages - there must be interference from Moscow.

Hence, there were those “that claimed school integration was a Soviet scheme ‘to mongrelize the white race in America.’ Herman Talmadge had used similar language in his 1955 book You and Segregation, warning that nations ‘composed of a mongrel race’ were easy prey—precisely ‘what the Communists want to happen to the United States’.” It is difficult not to see parallels with the reaction that had emerged in some eastern European countries against the LBGT movements, where the latter were denounced as imported from the “rotten West” with the purpose to “weaken the nation”. The Hungarian conservatives, for instance, attack the “woke Europe” that imposes this ideology upon the European nations and thereby threaten their “natural interests”. Again, an obstinate refusal to consider the possibility that such new ideas may simply emerge organically out of the changing social relations. Or in other words, that the so-called woke Hungarians are not a product of some premeditated policy by obscure forces, but rather a historical outcome of the social development.

And just as new ideas and novel social truths are the outcomes of socio-economic progress, so is the death of the old ideas and of the outdated social truths. And in practice they perish alongside the generations that would believe in them. For example, in 1963 there was a protest against racial integration in the schools in Alabama, where teenage boys held placards with the words “we want a white school”. That same year there was another notable incident where “a Black physician and civil rights activist in Huntsville, walked his son to Fifth Avenue Elementary to start first grade. ‘There was a mob out there, I guess 150, 175 parents and kids,’ Dr. Hereford remembered a half-century later. ‘They called my son and me everything you can think of’.” It is more than likely that a significant number of the racist youth from the 1960s are still alive today. Of course, we could also find progressives within that generation who have fought against racism their entire lives. However, needless to say, once that generation passes away, the US society will climb a step higher alongside the historical social progress.

To conclude, by ignoring history and what it demonstrates regarding the historical social change, the conservatives are capable of maintaining their occasional optimism over “turning the tide”. Quite a few in Europe were bolstered by the policies enacted in the USA by the Trump administration, as well as by the infamous speech in Munich by JD Vance in February of 2025. With the impetus of the USA, we will get rid of wokism in Europe as well - they said. But let’s go back to 1956, when an influential senator from Virginia said the following:

“If we can organize the Southern States for massive resistance to this order, I think that in time the rest of the country will realize that racial integration is not going to be accepted in the South.”

Well, we all know how that turned out. Therefore, history is a friend to the progressives.

Sources:
https://eji.org/news/resistance-to-racial-integration/
https://artsci.washu.edu/ampersand/before-loving
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201509/when-homosexuality-stopped-being-a-mental-disorder
https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/politics/relational_autonomy_patriotism_alternative-to-woke_europe_world_essay/

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