I believe we pretty quickly went from government mandated discrimination, to government mandated reverse discrimination/​affirmative action.
That’s not true. Although how not true this is depends on what governments you are talking about. In the US, the federal government was integrated many years before much of society (note for example that one early success of integration was in the armed services). However, it is true that some state governments engaged in large-scale and systematic discrimination until the mid 1960s and that that was forced out close to the same time that anti-discrimination measures on private businesses were passed.
That’s not true. Although how not true this is depends on what governments you are talking about. In the US, the federal government was integrated many years before much of society (note for example that one early success of integration was in the armed services). However, it is true that some state governments engaged in large-scale and systematic discrimination until the mid 1960s and that that was forced out close to the same time that anti-discrimination measures on private businesses were passed.