But first of all you must establish the norm before you start to judge whether people were cruel, abusive or whatever and this is lacking in most of these cases.I think that the Jim Crow era can easily be judged by our standards. By the early 1800s slavery was not seen in a good light by most of the world. By 1865 it was stopped by force in the US. 50 years after that, pro slavery segregationists were still at it by erecting specific statues as symbols of OPPRESSION, not as a way of honouring war heroes.
It is telling that a few key Confederate Generals do not have statues erected in public spaces by the Jim Crow era folks. Longstreet is a prime example. The man was a rabid anti slavery activist after the war. He’s arguably one of the better generals the confederates had. But he barely has any monuments anywhere to his names. Certainly not in the 31 states that raised those statues. (Only 11 states formed the confederacy yet 31 states have had statues erected mostly during Jim Crow times).
So while some people will use the excuse that “we can’t judge by today’s standards”. To an extent. But even using the standards of the day we can certainly judge. Should we judge a civil war general that made a difficult choice back in the day? Maybe not. But we can can certainly judge people who 50 years later used that general as a symbol of oppression. That’s what we are talking about. And we can certainly judge people today on how they can reconcile with the warts of the past.
I shudder to think that a hundred years from now some forum will be arguing that we can’t judge the nazi regime by the standards of that time.