Much of this article, while thoughtful, is reductionist -- rolling my eyes at the broad sweep of Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow era history. Still, a thoughtful article. I've recently been going back in my research to the 60s, and think about the two month span when Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. King, reaching beyond Civil Rights into strong opposition to the war and concern about poverty. That is not the MLK we memorialize on his birthday. Kennedy, perhaps the last politician to bridge the divide between white working class and minorities -- partly on policy, partly on mythos, much on empathy. In its place, a darkness.