It's genuinely so ridiculous to suggest that freedom and meritocracy (among other things) were why America was able to do this first. This stuff was before the civil rights act.

There are endless stories about Americans being sent to Europe needing to be told that they can't treat black people the way they do at home.

All of the chest thumping about being the land of the free rings hollow when considering how recent some of this history is. The current and previous president were alive when the civil rights act was passed!