I will be the first one to say that in this case...Democracy sucks. In some ways I think the people should have the right to vote, but same time, I don't think they should have the right to vote on other peoples rights. I could be wrong as I haven't taken American History, but preeeeetty sure you guys didn't vote on desegregation.
Segregation was NOT ended by a vote. You are absolutely correct. The end of segregation was brought about in part by the Supreme Court case of Brown V. Board of Education and by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I don't have the voting records, but essentially, desegregation was ended by a vote amongst less than 600 people, out of a population of about 180,000,000. Not democracy.
We did vote on slavery though! :V Well, at first. Then we just divided the nation to slave-states and free-states. Yeah. That was a smart idea.
we have a hybrid democracy/republic. the founding fathers did not trust a 100% true democracy, and the same for a 100% republic. besides, no one should have the right to vote to deny/segregate the rights of citizens.