This past Saturday, August 28, conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck held a rally in Washington, D.C. at the Lincoln Memorial; it was the forty-seventh anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech.
Though Beck said it was an accident that he had scheduled the event on this anniversary, he also said on his radio program that he and his followers would "reclaim the Civil Rights Movement": "We are the people of the civil rights movement. We are the ones that must stand for civil and equal rights, justice, equal justice. Not special justice, not social justice. We are the inheritors and protectors of the civil rights movement. They are perverting it."
The Tea Party activists believe that only less government can secure these "civil and equal rights." One attendee, Ron Sears of Corbin, Kentucky, explained their less-government philosophy this way: "The states are supposed to control education and everything having to do with their citizens, except when they need federal help."
The Civil Rights Movement, under King's leadership, recognized that it was the states that had deprived black Southerners of their Civil Rights. According to David Garrow's "Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference," King avoided defying federal court orders, even when a federal court barred him from marching.
Only the federal government, King believed, could secure civil rights for African Americans. Left to their own devices after Reconstruction ended and the federal government adopted a hands-off approach to the South, white Southerners moved swiftly to deprive black Southerners of basic civil rights, like the right to vote.
Whatever the hubris and impropriety of Beck and Tea Party activists trying to "reclaim the Civil Rights Movement," the fact remains that their philosophies could not be more different. Tea Party activists see the federal government as a source of oppression; King and the Civil Rights Movement recognized that the source of racism and discrimination was unrestrained individuals and state governments that could only be reined in by the federal government.
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thanks lisa i am an african american with other in my blood, i understand that Beck and their feel that the govt isn’t listening to them, but you reap what you sow, it says if you ignore the cries of the poor and downtroddin then your cries will be ignore(dats in the bible!) so I think they should be less worrying about taking someone else’s steam and stop crying pray and repent. Then perhaps God will take up their cause. Until then it comes of as arrogant, misguided and totally reprehensible. the fact the Palin a supposed christian women is defending the right to make racial eptitats on a talk show, shows how misguiding she really is. thanks.
I found your “compare and contrast” of each group’s view of Federal government to be very, very enlightening. Thank you for sharing your perspective.
Now I finally understand why so many people seem to misunderstand the importance of the First Amendment. The US Constitution doesn’t just keep the Federal government in check. The First Amendment keeps the States in check, too. And a lot of people in my neck of the woods don’t seem to like that much.
Beck is no different really than Limbaugh, O’Reily, Fox News and the like. Palin is a pawn, she’ll say anything for anyone any time about anything. The bad news is that he is getting so much of black people’s time and attention. Really it’s white people he’s trying to reach, more of them. He is trying to reach white people that voted for Obama. He is willing to say anything that will keep the attention on whiteness. White people like him, can’t handle being in a position where a black man is boss. Beck and the others, not Palin she’s works only for the money, are craving the great white way, and they aim to get it “by any means necessary”.
You have made an eloquent and elegant statement of the facts. Your articulation is so clearly stated and correct that I’m sure that you deserve a wider distribution of what I think is a right on statement of the facts.
When you stated: “Whatever the hubris and impropriety of Beck and Tea Party activists trying to “reclaim the Civil Rights Movement,” the fact remains that their philosophies could not be more different. “
You summed it up perfectly. Thank you for such a clear statement of the facts.
I could not agree with you more that Dr. King realized that the problem for civil rights were indeed being usurpted by states that refused to accept equality of the races. On the other hand Beck and Palin and the others that claim to be bearers of the Tea Party are very similiar to the politics of Late George Wallace, who rather than accept the majority selections of the Democratic Party, chose to form his own movement. The Tea Party seizes every opportunity to tear down the Constitution and Amendments. y others. What the vast majority of membership dues paying followers of the Becks, the Palins, and the separatist groups fail to recognize the capitalism on the big dollars. Palin gets something like $200, 000. ,or more for each speech she makes, + transportation by a Lear type jet and adjoining suites, limousine service to and from speaking engagements. Meanwhile Beck gets an undisclosed amount of six and seven figures per event, + percentages of the marketing from TV- radio appearances + royalties. The other separatist get increased membership dues and contributions from the psyched up separatist whom accept the downtroddened negativity from the speakers. Dr. King’s messages were always of inclusion and not capitalizing on the masses of people that were trying to gain equality, not separtist inequality based on a preconceived notion that the Creator made the African American inferior and incapable of leading anything. Now that an African American is the President of the United States of America every political tree stump serves as a speaking opportunity to exploit and wrongfully place the blame for the previous 12 years of economic decline, the housing market decline, job opportunities decline, and marketing American jobs to foreign countries. More next time. Mikey Baby
I do not want to come off as condescending, but I wantto ask you a question, Lisa. Are you white? If you are, I resent and am very tired of having someone of another race telling me about my race, civil rights, all the things we endured and so on. It makes me sick to open a paper and see so many things that were supposed to be ours such as jazz, which was considered as foolishness by some whites is now such a commodity for some whites now. It`s fine to enjoy something, but to see some white people on tv, now it is like reverse minstrels. America says it`s a melting pot, but it is not true. This is a country that thrives on the misery of some,right within our country. I have found much compassion from people from different country. I want to hear your replly.
Hi Pearl,
I appreciate your position, and I would never presume to offer anyone any sort of judgment of past suffering. Perhaps you’ll let me explain my philosophy. I truly think the world would be a better place if we all could appreciate the contributions and histories of other nations, other ethnic/racial groups than our own, other genders than our own, and other socioeconomic groups than our own.
There is much of this occurring already, but, for instance, in the area of women’s history, you still rarely find a young man taking a college women’s history and/or gender studies class or choosing to study or perform research in that field. To me, that is unfortunate.
In specific reference to African-American history, all Americans need to understand the contributions, achievements, and struggles of African Americans throughout US history. There is no true studying of American history without that appreciation.
As a professional US historian, I strive to offer on this website a basic overview of the field and a sense of the major debates within African-American history as well as placing it within broader US and world history.
Hopefully this is place for the exchange and discussion of ideas, such as this: should a white American study or write about African-American history?
Obviously, from my perspective, I think there is a place for that, just as I think a Christian would benefit from deeply studying and cultivating an appreciation of the history of Islam or a Serb would benefit from deeply studying or cultivating an appreciation of the history and culture of the Croats.
I’d also like to note that there have been some white historians who have made important contributions to the study of race relations and African-American history: Lawrence Levine, Eugene Genovese, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Carl Degler, and Edmund Morgan are just a few.
I would also point you to this article addressing this topic in the May 3, 2002, edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education titled “A ‘White Boy’ in African-American Studies” by Mark D. Naison.
Finally, I hope you continue to visit the site and render a final judgment based on the quality of its content.
I went to the 1963 March on Washington. When I saw the last summers “Restoring Honor” gathering abusing the memory of Martin Luther King I wrote the song “Bus Ride To Washington”. Click on the url to hear/view it or follow this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_slIO8CxDw
I would just like to say that while I may not agree with many conservatives, I do not like that you chose to weave your own political views into this column. I came to this site to research African-American history, not hear a political spiel.
Other than that, I have found this very useful and informative. This is the only site so far that I found found with a day-by-day like this. It’s a very interesting read.
Thank you!
Black libertarian/Tea Partier here. I can’t help but comment on this.
1) I am not a Beck fan. I voted for Ron Paul in 08. (We were the original Tea Party.)
2) I thought the rally and stated purpose to be weird and cultlike. The attempt to link MLK with frenzied worship of flag & military was strained, to say the least.
3) However, none of the above precludes Beck’s actually being correct about many things.
“Civil Rights” most definitely needs reclaiming from the orgs and anointed leaders who have claimed ownership of the issues. Folks need to also realize that the construct of “civil rights” is a bowdlerized version of real Constitutionally guaranteed rights. For example, many so-called civil rights leaders have militantly opposed, or aligned with those who oppose, the individual right to self-defense via firearms. Many oppose the equal right to life for all human beings–they exclude those not yet born, forgetting that at one time they were deemed less than human as well.
Yet at the same time, with the rest of the Left, they espouse “positive rights” (i.e., the “right” to have government give you anything and everything you demand), which negates real rights, since government then must have unlimited power.
The negatiion of real, God-given rights, with the invention of an infinite list of bogus rights calculated to require dependency on the government, is not a position I can accept. I want all of my rights, no more and no less, and I want the same for you too.
Equal protection under the law is a right and, one can deduce from that, equal opportunity. There are ways to make opportunity more equitable other than handing absolute power to a central government and enacting arbitrary and punitive schemes that steal what some produce and hand it to others.
The Tea Party activists believe that only less government can secure these “civil and equal rights. … The Civil Rights Movement, under King’s leadership, recognized that it was the states that had deprived black Southerners of their Civil Rights.
1) That’s kind of a moot argument in 2010, half a century later. Whatever arguments may have been expedient under emergency circumstances back then, the emergency passed a long time ago.
When a fire is put out, the firefighters turn off the hoses and they pack up and leave. Washington should do the same. I think King, were he alive now, would agree.
But of course, powermongers do not give up power. They fight tooth and nail to hang on, and grab more. “Civil Rights,” sadly, was and is a convenient pretext for this.
2) There are 50 States. Why do all get permanently punished for the sins (at that time) of a few?
3) To counter the violation of one vital set of rights by destroying another (State rights, and the People’s right to a barrier against similar or worse violations by Washington) isn’t a solution. Advocates for full Constitutional rights would have found a way to preserve both. Lamentably, MLK and fellow travelers were more influenced by Marxists, and some of those interests were not interested in a win-win solution; they wanted Stalinist centralism, a defeat for States and local government and ultimately, the individual, and they got it. Now we are all slaves. Or perhaps you prefer to think of yourself as “free” when you cannot board an airplane wihtout federal employees photographing your naked body and reaching into your pants and sexually molesting you. And as you know, those are some of the nicer things being done to people in the “War on Terror.”
4) Centralizing power in Washington removes it from the people (no matter how much “democracy” rhetoric accompanies this trick). It also teaches a poor lesson in citizenship and it deprives people of the right of meaningful participation in the issues that affect their lives.
5) The belief that the Washington govt is not capable of abuses as great as States — and far worse — is irrational. Again, see #3; see warrantless surveillance, extraordinary rendition and indefinite imprisonment without trial, torture, etc. See “War on Drugs” … and “War” … just for starters.
White supremacy was bad, but it jumped the shark decades ago. Government supremacy is still going strong and growing day by day. And this ideology has murdered, maimed, tortured, imprisoned and oppressed more people by orders of magnitude.
King avoided defying federal court orders, even when a federal court barred him from marching.
Another on the list of disappointing facts about King.
He forgot, or ignored, that most Americans — indeed, about half of black Americans at the time — were not living in southern States, and that the rest of the States did not deserve to have their rights, and their buffer against federal abuses (like the federal court order barring him from marching), revoked.
Glen Beck does not speak for white people. He speaks for the ignorant who have little sense of history, and less knowledge. He tried to hijack Dr. King when he (Beck) marched at Washington. I am a white woman, and all I will say is, ‘How dare he?’