Many unpopular movements turn popular based on an enlightened sense of justice.
This act of Congress didn't by any means erase the past, but it did give us as a nation a psychological and moral boost. It was right and we felt cleaner and better for it. It could be that payment to blacks for past mistakes and neglect will someday actually occur in the United States. Affirmative action may have run its course and reparations may finish the job of racial equality. It was prudent in those conditions of actual or impending assault by either side, but it became doctrine over 60 years.