In this recovered timeline, the 1964 Civil Rights Act fails by a single vote. What follows is four more years of violent backlash, institutional retreat, and rising radicalization. Through the eyes of one young activist turned grandfather, we trace the full cost of a delayed reckoning—from vanished lives to fractured movements and a justice system that never fully recovered. Decades later, the battle scars remain—buried under textbooks, misremembered by ceremonies, and passed down in silence. Was the eventual victory worth the price? Or did America break something that day it never quite repaired?

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