I liked the forced integration in the 50’s and 60’s because it had a jarring affect on American consciousness. Segregation was outlawed, and integration became the rule of the land. And, that watershed moment is a mighty and essential part of what changed our country for the better. Integration-by-law had and has a widespread effect on changing attitudes to this day.
No matter what blacks and whites thought of each other, the lawmaker’s gave them a way to violate their own bias behavior. Many American’s immediately became aware of how their thinking was changing.
What the Lincolnesque 1964 Civil Rights Act elementally did was take starkly dissimilar peoples and said, “Yes, you must be allowed to drink from the same fountain!”