If you can get a copy of the Claremont Review of Books, I recommend the book review by Jean Edward Smith called A People's History of Reconstruction; he reviews Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction by Eric Foner.
Foner is a blind Marxist idealog, but no matter. Smith’s point is fascinating that Foner
ignores the four biggest forces that destroyed Jim Crow in my lifetime. (1) President Eisenhower’s use of the
military to enforce the Brown v Board of Education decision in Little Rock on
September 25, 1957 (2) acceptance of blacks on college sports teams in the South in the early 1970s, (3)
the racially integrated work force of the rapidly expanding Wal Mart’s that put many old line segregated
stores out of business and (4) the same integrated work force expansion of MacDonald’s
that put many segregated diners out of business.
Lets hear it again for commerce.