National Review Celebrates Martin Luther King Day!

I recommend the archives of National Review: a gift that keeps on giving:

As part of National Review's celebration of Martin Luther King day, we present William F. Buckley, from the February 22, 1956 issue:

On February 6, Miss Autherine J. Lucy went to class at the University of Alabama, which admitted her by the order of a federal court. When she left the building she was assaulted by a mob.... It was the culmination of a weekend of demonstrations against the admission of a Negro.... [T]he nation cannot get away with feigning surprie at the fact that there was a demonstration by students, nor even that the demonstration became ugly and uncontrolled. For in defiance of constitutional practice, with a total disregard of custom and tradition, the Supreme Court a year ago illegalized a whole set of deeply-rooted folkways and mores.... The incident involving Miss Lucy is only one of many such incidents whose occurrence we had better get used to if we intend to enforce the Supreme Court's decision at bayonet point... the consequences of exacting of a whole region of our country compliance with a law that in the opinion of Southerners unsettles the basis of their society. The Supreme Court elected to tamper with organic growth. It must, under the circumstances, accept the fatherhood of social deformity.

We continue with a little historical background on Birmingham, Alabama:

Birmingham, Alabama - Civil Rights: The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) filed petitions for integrated public facilities and an integrated downtown business community, city officials refused their demands.... [T]he ACMHR... invited Martin Luther King Jr.... selective buying campaigns to protest segregation of downtown businesses; planned demonstrations to protest the city's refusal to fully integrate; and followed the legal tactics of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). When thousands of children participated in a march for integration, Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor ordered the use of fire hoses and dogs to drive back the youthful demonstrators. Across the country, television stations fanned images of firefighters attacking citizens with powerful hoses and police carting children away in paddy wagons. This police riot in Birmingham drew national attention.... After being arrested during the demonstrations, King wrote his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"...

And we complete National Review's celebration of Martin Luther King day by turning the microphone over to L. Brent Bozell, from the June 4, 1963 issue:

The... governor of Alabama, acting for his state, filed a suit in the United States Supreme Court that asked... whether the educated citizens of the Kennedy Administration are concerned with discharging this special responsibility [to uphold the law] or merely with gassing about it.... [D]id the President act within his authority in sending federal troops to Alabama in the wake of the Birmingham riots?.... Alabama's principal contention... is that the Act of Congress under which the President dispatched the troops is unconstitutional... that the 14th amendment... is "null and void"... that the President's actions did not comply with [the act's] conditions....

The statute... a law the Reconstruction Congress enacted in 1871.... [T]he President can send in troops... only when... there must be some "domestic violence" or "insurrection," and let us agree that condition was met b the Negro rioters.... [T]he domestic violence must be the cause... [of] a denial of equal protection... [or] obstruction of federal laws. Now: how in Heaven's name--granted they created a certain amount of havoc--can the Negro riots be said to have caused either of those consequences? Finally, assuming it is a violence-inspired enail of equal protection... the local authorities must have shown themselves either unable or unwilling to deal with the situation. Yet the authorities in Birmingham [police chief "Bull" Connor and Governor George Wallace] apparently did have the matter under control before Kennedy pushed the button....

[T]he legality of the 14th amendment.... The argument that it was improperly ratified is historically irrefragable....

It is undoubtedly too much to hope that Alabama will win her case: the President's cavalier action is not likely to raise many eyebrows on a Court that handed down those sit-in decisions. But... Alabama's lawyers can help but the public straight on who is and who isn't concerned these das with working otu the nation's terrible racial problem within the framework of law.

Comments

[Ralph]

Buckley's editorial reminds me of something that was said on CSPAN at a tricentennial celebration of Ben Franklin's birthday (hosted by PBS's Bill Lehrer) in Philadelphia. The question was over Franklin having been a slaveholder (he had two male black slaves) and his subsequent conversion to the abolitionist persuasion. George Washington as a Southern planter had many more slaves whom he freed towards the end of his life. But even Washington was assailed and criticized for his act by his wife Martha and the rest of the Southern aristocracy. The fact was that Western/Mediterranean civilization had accepted slavery as natural for thousands of years, so it was an enormous change that was contemplated by progressive thinking at the beginning of the United States. Many people apparently thought that slavery would eventually become obsolete in the US but "not just now." There seems to be a similar sentiment behind Buckley's editorial. Full first class citizenship for black people will come eventually but let's not force it at the expense of national unity and "not just now."

[PaulC]

"with a total disregard of custom and tradition, the Supreme Court a year ago illegalized a whole set of deeply-rooted folkways and mores...."

Hmmm... sounds like cultural relativism to me. I.e., no universal human rights, just "deeply-rooted" social constructs. I imagine Buckley would have been comfortable justifying female genital mutilation, wife burning, or human sacrifice along the same lines, right?

I know, I know, it's not cultural relativism when it's about white people's "folkways."

[PaulC]

"The incident involving Miss Lucy is only one of many such incidents whose occurrence we had better get used to if we intend to enforce the Supreme Court's decision at bayonet point..."

Actually, I agree with Buckley on this point. Fortunately, we mustered up the national courage to shove human rights down the throat of southern racists even against their violent protests. As far as I can see, it was effective, far more so than just hoping they'd come along in good time.

[Alan]

Every time I hear "state rights" from one of these a-holes I know what they want. They want to sew up the local city, county, and state govenments which will give them the power to keep themselves on top and anyone else down.

"Basis of their society" my ass.

[Howard]

i particularly enjoy the notion that Bull Connor had "things under control" in Birmingham.

and i also like the idea that elected officials in a city and state where black people essentially could not vote deserve the same respect as if they were really elected by the citizenry.

[anne]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0DF1531F934A15752C1A96E948260

November 27, 1988

How the Dream Was Born
By ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

PARTING THE WATERS
America in the King Years, 1954-63.
By Taylor Branch.

Although Mr. Branch makes few harsh judgments, this is not a book about saints. It is a set of compelling portraits, placed in the excitement of a period when oppressed and powerless people moving together changed themselves and their country profoundly and permanently. Small steps by timid leaders had proved unavailing for a century. Finally, the people did it themselves with the brilliant combination of strategy and philosophy that became the Southern nonviolent civil rights movement. What has in other countries been changed through ruinous violence was transformed by the principled suffering of those who had already suffered most. Particularly, history is finally recognizing the anonymous cadre who gave everything to the movement and therefore to their country. Thank you, Septima Clark and Charles Sherrod. Thank you, James Lawson. Thank you, Ruby Doris Smith. CONVERTED BY BULL CONNOR

[anne]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0DF1531F934A15752C1A96E948260

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

In the pages on Greenwood, I was pulled back to unforgettable Mississippi days. Mr. Branch had begun to describe my own life. For me, as for many who experienced these years - whether actively involved in the movement or vicariously - ''Parting the Waters'' often brilliantly evokes the familiar. I found many such road markers, but none like the description of the assassination of Medgar Evers, the N.A.A.C.P. field secretary in Mississippi. It all came rolling back: the summer day I spent in Jackson, Miss., when Evers took me on his ''rounds''; his case for why a law student like me was needed there, an appeal overridden by my promise to Bob Moses to work with him in the Delta; the drive to the bus station that evening, where Evers put me on a bus to Greenwood. I was alone the next morning in the kitchen of a farm couple who were off picking beans when I heard the knock of a child on the screen door. There, sitting naked in a tin washtub of bath water warmed on the stove, I learned that Evers had been shot to death that same night....

[anne]

Remember, of course, that Martin Luther King was in Memphis those years ago, after the Nobel Peace Prize, during a saddening war, to bring attention to the cause of sanitation workers.

[Arun Khanna]

You should try older books (fiction, non-fiction before World War II). The terms used to describe African Americans and the stereotypes of African American characters in novels are eye opening.
Or try current Pakistani Urdu novels (if you can find an English translation), you will find stereotypes of Hindus, Jews, Christians (a term used for any westerner) are eye opening.

[anne]

Oh dear, imagine such a speech in the midst of war, forever in the cause of peace, thinking of what was to be a march on poverty, in Memphis on behalf of striking sanitation workers.

[Ralph]

It occurred to me that we were also fortunate in those seemingly far-off days that the national media were more responsible than the current crop of decrepitly consolidated cowardly brown-noses we call today the MSM.

[Gene O'Grady]

What I found most unsettling was Buckley's use of "the basis of their society." It is, and was "our" society.

[bakho]

As I understand the history, even some states outside the south had segregated schools. The strictest laws were in the South, but wasn't Brown V Board of education from Kansas? I don't think of Kansas being in the South. School segregation reached at least into the Midwest and defacto segregation still exists today.

[Ralph]

Brown v Bd of Education was in many ways the opening shot in the battle to desegregate the nation and end the "separate but equal" curtain from the reconstruction era legacy of du Plessis v Ferguson which justified segregation in the South. Segregation was not limited to the South of course even Boston was for a long time known as a segregated town and its battles over segregation were a national scandal. Located in the same border state belt as Missouri, Kansas was "invaded" at a crucial point in time by abolitionists from New England, the Jayhawkers, who managed to prevent Kansas from becoming a battleground of "free v slave state" like Missouri. The recent book by Tom Frank, "What's the Matter with Kansas", makes allusion to this history of Kansas, though its main concern is the more recent political division known as the "red v blue state" polarization in US national politics.

['As You Know' Bob]

Looking forward, the National Review will soon be making similar points about same-sex marriage: "For in defiance of constitutional practice, with a total disregard of custom and tradition, the Supreme Court a year ago illegalized a whole set of deeply-rooted folkways and mores.... "

Actually, they've probably already attemtped to justify denying people equal protection because it upsets some people's prejudices.

[liberal]

bakho wrote, "The strictest laws were in the South, but wasn't Brown V Board of education from Kansas?"

It's "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka [Kansas]." But the decision is really 4 cases, rolled into one. Other three are:
* "Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al." [S. Carolina]
* "Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al."
* "Gebhart et al. v. Belton et al." [Delaware]

There is a companion case, "Bolling v. Sharpe," concerning Washington, DC.

[wishful]

In the vein of, "The more things change...", let's compare/contrast the similarity of *Bush's (failed) stunt to trick Blanco into conceding civil control of NOLA to federal military control during Katrina's aftermath, to *Bozell's whining that Kennedy had no right to send federal troops to Alabama except in a case of insurrection or domestic violence.

Was there real domestic violence beyond ability of the civil authorities in Alabama during the Birmingham riots? Why yes, yes there was.
Was there real domestic violence beyond the ability of the civil authorities in the wake of Katrina? No, nothing that regular law enforcement didn't handle, despite the best sabataging efforts of Bush and DHS/FEMA to foment, and when that failed, to claim in their propaganda efforts. Too bad for them that Blanco and CNN didn't fall for it, and realized that the situation called for humanitarian aid to citizens, not military force against citizens. Though I wonder if Blanco/Anderson Cooper realized at the time that the stakes were really that high.

[dearieme]

Ralph: Googling brings up "...Washington.. In his will, he arranged for all of the slaves he owned to be freed after the death of his wife, Martha." Not quite what you said, but a good deal better than Jefferson's effort. Still, we all have slave-owner ancestors, and slave ancestors, do we not?

[Arun Khanna]

Dearieme said "...Washington.. In his will, he arranged for all of the slaves he owned to be freed after the death of his wife, Martha." Not quite what you said, but a good deal better than Jefferson's effort. Still, we all have slave-owner ancestors, and slave ancestors, do we not?"
Check out Andrew Levy's book titled, THE FIRST EMANCIPATOR: The Forgotten Story of Robert Carter, the Founding Father Who Freed His Slaves.

[P O'Neill]

Did Brent Bozell have a position on King George's demand for a federal takeover in Louisiana after Katrina?

[larry birnbaum]

What's really sad, as alluded to by Bob and a number of others above, is that these people never learn. Right now they are engaged in supporting and abetting beliefs, speech, and behavior that will look as evil and incomprehensible 20 or 30 years from now as their support for segregation does today. It isn't just about money or power: There's something wrong with them.

[anon]

"Segregation was not limited to the South of course even Boston was for a long time known as a segregated town and its battles over segregation were a national scandal."

This seems to me to be a classic example of the errors that develop in discussions within 'public' fora today (e.g. cable, blogs, radio etc.). Loose language and sloppy thinking catylzed by a stringent but unthinking logic allow a cobbling together of several different strands of an argument with the aim of illustrating some completely erroneous premise. Frequently this tactic is used by ideologoues who have an answer in mind before they construct the argument (note: I am not suggesting that is the case here).

Boston was not 'segregated' in the same sense as the South. Segregation in the school system of Boston and suburbs was based on the selected self-segregation of homogenous racial populations within separate school districts. This type of segregation was common in the 70's and remains so today. With Boston being a particularly notable and disgraceful example of its persistence.

This type of segregatrion was fundamentally different from that which required or allowed separate schools for the two races within the SAME school district. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

It is just this sort of sloppy thinking that has become the bane of any one who dares, or had dared to enter a public discussion in the States on the supposed merits of the Iraq invasion.

(Note: interestingly the Wikipedia article on Boston makes a similar connection to segregation, but provides the right contextual interpretation as to the differernce.)

[jon livesey]

"The fact was that Western/Mediterranean civilization had accepted slavery as natural for thousands of years, so it was an enormous change that was contemplated by progressive thinking at the beginning of the United States."

This makes it seem as though the US led the abolition of slavery. In fact, the US lagged the rest of the western world in abolishing slavery, later made Chinese labourers live under conditions of effective slavery, and didn't grant full citizenship to the descendents of slaves until the nineteen sixties.

When I was a child in Europe in the fifties, the US was widely regarded as an embarrassment to the West, and a country whose internal conditions undermined western criticism of the USSR. In fact, people sarcastically referred to "The two USAs", meaning the United States of America, and the Union of South Africa, whose societies they viewed as parallels.

I don't think that even today Americans appreciate what an enormous change in the world's opinion of the US was achieved by Kennedy.

[anne]

Jon Livesay

"I don't think that even today Americans appreciate what an enormous change in the world's opinion of the US was achieved by Kennedy."

My father tells of going to houses of poorer Latin American farmers in the middle of fields, and in a room almost bare there would be an image of Mary and John Kennedy. I told this to South African friends a while ago, and they said they had seen the same.

[Sly Fanatic]

Of course Armstrong Williams,Alan Keyes and that weird looking Cheneyite Colored who has a book out Black in the White House(?), would stress that States Rights should have been upheld and the rushed granting of equality to them other Negroes just lessens things for their enlightened go along to get along asses.

[Jose Padilla]

L. Brent Bozell was writing for NR forty-three years ago? I figured the guy was about fifty. How long has National Review been letting seven-year-olds write for it. Of course that does explain a lot.

[dearieme]

jon livesey; "was achieved by Kennedy". I wonder: I think it was the success of MLK and the whole Civil Rights movement that changed things. One expects some bloody politician to come panting up afterwards to claim the credit, but surely even the American propensity to attribute so much importance to Washington can't disguise the fact that it was a triumph for (some of) the people.

[Ralph]

Thank you dearieme for directing me to use Google for more on Washington's relationship to Martha and the slave controversy. This led me to historian Henry Wiencek's interview on NPR (Fresh Air, Nov 10, 2003). Wiencek has discovered many things about Washington by reading original documents (his will). Surprisngly to me, Wiencek says Washington used freed black slaves extensively in the Revolutionary war. Up to 25% of his troops were black. They composed some of the most disciplined and courageous of Washington's troops and were used in some of his most daring battles. He at first was reluctant to use them for obvious reasons but practical necessity came first for an officer with his responsibilities. A German officer familiar with the situation mentioned the same thing but contemporary accounts are very sparse which accounts for this lack of knowledge in the usual history books.

[tedb]

Still, we all have slave-owner ancestors, and slave ancestors, do we not?

Posted by: dearieme | January 15, 2006 at 08:07 PM

Dearieme, Although I respect the thrust of your point, it seems to me a bit too broad. As far as I know, all my ancestors were Irish who held no slaves nor were slave ancestors. Yes, my family has benefited over the last 150 years by being white, but we are not guilty of participating in the slave trade.
Pointing fingers at large segments of society is not productive at this moment in history, in my opinion. Let's just see what we can do to ensure that all children have a fair chance of success in our society. That approach will cause a lot less defensiveness (see my reaction above) and more acceptance and cooperation. (I in no way mean to deny the enormous impact of racism in our country's history....)

[bob]

Jose Padilla is confusing L. Brent Bozell Jr., who wrote for NR in the 1950s, with L. Brent Bozell III who is "President of the Media Research Center, Parents [sic] Television Council, and the Conservative Communications Center". Of course they are both slimebags.

[Michael Murphy]

That would be Brent Bozell's father.

[Mellifluous]

OK, explain to me how the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution can be illegal. It can be someone's opinion that it is wrong to have it in the constitution, but by definition a part of the constitution cannot be illegal.

Tells me all I need to know...