Civil Rights, Libertarianism and Reclaiming the Dream
by W. James Antle III
February/March 2003
We hear often about the civil rights activism of the 1960s. Nearly every social-political movement, from gay rights activists to abortion opponents, invokes its legacy in their own battles. One would expect to see proponents of individualism and liberty foremost among them, yet surprising numbers of them look at the civil rights movement without seeing its noblest aspects.
There is a branch of libertarianism and anti-statist conservatism (both tending to describe themselves as “paleos”) that critiques the movement that brought down Jim Crow as being primarily identified with forced association, unconstitutional legislation and an erosion of decentralized government. As consistent a defender of liberty and non-racist as the late Murray Rothbard supported Strom Thurmond’s States’ Rights Democratic presidential bid in 1948, largely on the grounds that proposed civil rights legislation amounted to an unacceptable affront to the American constitutional order. Moreover, outlets sympathetic to these viewpoints remain the most unremitting source of criticism of Martin Luther King, Jr.
The tension between committed anti-statists and even the original civil rights movement was real and not without some valid reasons. Civil rights legislation did reach into the affairs of private property and business owners; leaders advocating them, including King, had ties to left-wing groups. This engendered the opposition of many libertarians and conservatives, including even the early National Review.
Yet the civil rights movement at its finest appealed for equal rights under the law and just treatment of individuals on the basis of their humanity rather than their skin color. While King and other civil rights leaders were unmistakably influenced by the Social Gospel, like most progressive Christians of the era, they made their case for black equality and individual dignity by appealing to transcendent rights. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” King spoke of natural rights that cannot be granted or denied by the state. The moral argument for racial equality was not won by citing obscure Marxist texts; it was won with points drawn from the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
The notion that defects in King’s personal character should detract from these principles, or the good his work accomplished, is tantamount to the argument that the principles behind these two crucial founding documents – admired by liberty-loving people across the globe – are somehow invalid because they were written by people who owned slaves. High principle is by definition capable of transcending the foibles, flaws and limitations of those who imperfectly espouse them.
Indeed, advocates of human equality without regard to race were appealing to principles more consistent with our Republic’s Declaration promise than many of the self-described constitutionalists arrayed against them. Let us first note that Jim Crow was by no means libertarian – government-enforced racial segregation actually interfered with the rights of people to choose their associates, operate their privately owned businesses and dispose of privately owned property as they saw fit. They oppressed not just blacks but whites who wanted to open their businesses to black customers, their property to black tenants and their families to black people they cared for.
As Dave Kopel wrote in National Review On-Line, “Jim Crow laws forbade interracial marriage. They imposed segregation on private business such as trains, trolleys, restaurants, hotels, boarding houses, and theaters. For example, some states made it a crime for a black barber to cut a white woman’s hair.” State governments forced private citizens to treat blacks unequally, and furthermore denied blacks voting rights and equal protection under the law in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
Nor were many of the leading segregationists consistent libertarians or constitutionalists. Most only opposed federal interference with Jim Crow laws. George Wallace, a political disciple of “Kissin’” Jim Folsom, favored activist government in social welfare policies. Strom Thurmond was a staunch New Dealer while governor of South Carolina. From Pitchfork Ben Tillman to Theodore Bilbo, many were pseudo-populist income redistributionists with little regard for a free economy.
It is also worth noting that minorities who are victims of discrimination tend to turn to government for help and that those who feel the sting of inequality find collectivism appealing. It was on this basis that the left was able to use the civil rights movement for its own purposes; defenders of individual liberty should have countered by presenting individualism as the true basis for racial equality.
That opportunity still stands. Today’s heirs of the civil rights movement, often claiming the mantle of the very organizations that decades ago helped win equal rights for black Americans, have embraced race-conscious identity politics and racial preferences. Libertarians and small-government conservatives can counter this racialism with the true promise of equality and freedom offered by individualism.
It is time for those who value and respect the individual to take the lead in opposing immoral attempts to categorize people by race. Yet we can only do so if we recognize the fundamental truths the civil rights movement conveyed at its greatest moments and seek to reclaim them.
W. James Antle III is a senior editor of Enter Stage Right and freelance writer published on a number of other webzines..
Copyright © 2003 W. James Antle III. All rights reserved.