[Strangler Lewis]

Here's what I think Obama meant in his discussion of the civil rights movement. Two points: First, separate but equal was not overturned overnight. Thurgood Marshall litigated a number of cases that overturned a number of segregationist schemes by showing that--surprise--they were not, in fact, equal. Second, Marshall & co. scrupulously avoided all entreaties by socialists, communists and the like who claimed that the worker's struggle was also the black man's struggle. Thus, I think that Obama was lamenting that the civil rights movement did not do--or could not have done--more to ensure that black schools, whether segregated de facto or de jure were, in fact equal. I assume that if the issue is phrased as "everyone should be able to go to good schools" rather than as "redistribution" that you do not object even though it amounts to the same thing.