Antiplanner analyzes what we lost and what we gained 50 years ago today. His conclusion might surprise you:
No one knows what America would be like today if Kennedy had not been assassinated, but I strongly suspect that the federal laws banning segregation and guaranteeing voting rights would not have passed for at least another decade. That certainly doesn’t mean the assassination was a good thing, but maybe it was a good thing we lost the innocence that kept us from seeing the injustice that pervaded our society.
Also interesting is Antiplanner’s recollection of school segregation in the the hipster hangout we know as Portland.