How radical would the idea of racial equality be in Abraham Lincoln's time?

:rolleyes::dubious::mad:

You are if you’re all like, “Hey! Colored musician! Put down your sandwich and entertain me this instant! Dance boy!”

Does a 1930’s sign that adverts “colored music” (meaning Jazz and Blues) indicate that in the slightest?

Back in the 30s, the black musicians wouldn’t have been allowed to attend those very clubs they were hired to play in. Jim Crow was the norm then. Today, those black musicians can eat where they want, drink where they want, stay in any hotel they like. They couldn’t do that in the “progressive” 1930s.

In some places, yes. Lots more racism back then, even among well meaning dudes. But what has that to do with "'I’ve seen some movies where northerners would still expect blacks to sing and dance for them.

Here in Kansas City one famous ballroom advertised it’s large “colored” band into the 1930’s."

We* still *expect musicians and entertainers to sing and dance for us- that’s what their job is. “Colored music” simply meant Jazz & Blues (almost always played by Black musicians, sure).

There’s nothing racist about hiring entertainers or advertising what kind of music it is.

Certainly you’d expect quite a bit more racism in the 1930’s then, but this is hardly and example of it.

And it took place in the 1870s.

:eek::confused::dubious::smack:

Actually, in the 20’s and 30’s, it was “Race music”.

I have heard that, as late as the 1870’s, the educated opinion was that whites were the only true humans; others were some lesser species which, with some effort, could be made to speak and act as human.
Do not know how wide-spread that idea was or if it was centered in Europe or the Americas.

Against that background, any thought of equality would be exceedingly rare.

I’d like to see a cite for that.

So would I - as I said, I had heard this - probably 30-40 years ago. I do not remember where aside from a printed source and I do not read stuff from outlandish sources (unless for giggle value, such as the Pit).

A quick Wiki on “Scientific Racism”

Voltaire had some interesting ideas.

John Brown is an excellent example of how rare a belief in true equality was in mid-19th-C America. Unlike, say, the Massachssetts abolitionist leaders, Brown “put his money where his mouth was,” by founding New Elba, a farmer’s colony in the Adirondack region of New York State where blacks and whites lived as true equals in all respects. This was radical.

(Brown was a terrible farmer, and the soil at New Elba was of poor quality, so the settlement failed after a couple of years – but as an experiment in neighbors respecting each other fully regardless of race, it was way ahead of its time.)

I think the question betrays itself. Does “anyone” include blacks? Because I’m sure that there were plenty of blacks who viewed themselves as equal to whites. They might not have had the opportunity to voice that opinion, but they still quite sincerely held it.