Some of that depends on the time scale you use for "before." Most people still say "I'm not racist but--" There are a lot of microaggressions and dog whistles, where 50 years ago there was more straightforward "doesn't everybody hate these people?"
In my previous post, I mentioned that I've been hanging out at Boston University. (I never used to, even though it's less than ten miles from my apartment.) They have a big display of Martin Luther King's papers, because he left them in his will after going to theology school there. The Montgomery bus boycott had amazingly modest demands. They knew how much power the racists had...they were so careful not to ask for too much. They did not dare ask to sit next to white people, only to sit near the front of the bus when there was space available. This happened in living memory, when my mother was a teenager. Living memory.
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Some of that depends on the time scale you use for "before."
Most people still say "I'm not racist but--" There are a lot of microaggressions and dog whistles, where 50 years ago there was more straightforward "doesn't everybody hate these people?"
In my previous post, I mentioned that I've been hanging out at Boston University. (I never used to, even though it's less than ten miles from my apartment.) They have a big display of Martin Luther King's papers, because he left them in his will after going to theology school there. The Montgomery bus boycott had amazingly modest demands. They knew how much power the racists had...they were so careful not to ask for too much. They did not dare ask to sit next to white people, only to sit near the front of the bus when there was space available. This happened in living memory, when my mother was a teenager. Living memory.