Yes The LAW Is A Teacher and Can Change Attitudes (The Civil Rights Act)

The Volokh Conspiracy has a post Public Opinion, Anti-Discrimination Law, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

He says at the start:
The truth is almost the reverse of Will’s statement. The Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1964 because “the thinking of the white portion of the country” had already changed over the previous 20–30 years. As Howard Schuman and his coauthors document in their comprehensive book Racial Attitudes in America, there was an enormous liberalization in white opinion on race from the 1940s to the 1960s. By 1963, one year before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, 85% of whites polled in a National Opinion Research Center survey endorsed the view that “Negroes should have as good a chance to get any kind of job” and rejected the position that “white people should have the first chance at any kind of job” (endorsed by only 15%). This contrasts with 55% who said that “white people should have the first chance” on the same question in 1942 and 51% who said so in 1944.

Similarly, 73% of whites questioned in a 1963 NORC poll embraced the view that “Negroes should have the right to use the same parks, restaurants, and hotels, as white people.” The same 1963 study also showed that 79% of whites rejected the idea that transportation in streetcars and buses should be segregated, compared to 54% who had endorsed it in 1942 (both the 1942 and 1963 questions used the same wording). The 1963 figures probably overstate the actual degree of white support for integration and equal opportunity. But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that white opinion had moved strongly in an integrationist direction relative to previous years, and that discrimination against blacks in employment and public accommodations was opposed by a majority of white voters by 1964.

Ok but WHERE were these white folks located. Later on he admits
None of this means that the Civil Rights Act was insignificant. Although national white opinion was generally favorable to integration by 1964, southern whites were still much more hostile. Moreover, southern businesses that wanted to employ black workers on an equal basis with whites and/or serve black customers in an integrated setting were often prevented from doing so by state law and government and private violence. On these fronts, the Act really did make a major positive difference. The South probably would not have desegregated anywhere near as fast without it.

EXACTLY. You often hear you can;t teach morality but here the law was very much teaching a moral lesson. I think it helped that the South was a religious place and yes there was unease I think in a lot of people's hearts of hearts on these issues.

Still the law teaches a moral lesson.