Friday, March 29, AD 2024 4:41am

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial: Preaching civil rights without a mention of their divine origin?

An article in the Church Report Daily makes note of something The Motley Monk didn’t know and hadn’t heard reported on any of the news reports: The word “God” does not appear in any of the quotes attributed to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on his new memorial in Washington, DC.  This omission, despite the fact that the civil rights leader preached often about the divine origin of these rights.

 

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
in Washington, DC

 

The Director of the Christian Defense Coalition in Washington, DC, the Rev. Patrick J.  Mahoney, commented:

Just a few days ago I walked to the Dr. King Memorial for a moment of  inspiration, reflection and prayer. It was the first time I had visited the  memorial.

The setting and  vision of the memorial was powerful and moving and served as a prophetic reminder that we must always stand for human  rights and justice.

As I  walked around the memorial, I was stunned and shocked to see that the mention of  “God” was not included in any of the quotes from Dr. King on the granite wall  surrounding his sculpture.

Dr.  King was an ordained Christian minister and pastor who made faith in God and the  teachings of Christ the central part of his life and message.  The heart of the  civil rights movement was rooted in the Church and drew its strength from  the timeless truths proclaimed by God.

Not to include any mention of “God” in the quotes at the  memorial is a betrayal of the life, legacy and teachings embraced and lived by  Dr. King.  I think he would have been stunned and disappointed to see this  oversight.

 

This omission—the failure to include the mention of God in  the memorial—strikes, like the Rev. Mahoney as betraying Dr. King’s life, legacy, and teachings.  After all, he was an ordained Christian minister and preacher.

As bad as that betrayal may be, perhaps this “omission” is actually a “commission,” that is, a deliberate and stealthy act to avoid using the word “God” in the King Memorial.  If so, this act provides clear evidence not just of a culture that has sold itself out to the gospel of political correctness but which is also hellbent on removing public expressions of faith and God from the public square.

What’s next?  To remove the references to God and the Creator in the nation’s founding documents?

 

 

To read the article in the Church Report Daily, click on the following link:
http://www.thechurchreport.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=siteContent.default&objectID=141441

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Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Tuesday, October 18, AD 2011 6:21pm

I can’t understand this weeping and wailing over MLK’s statue not containing any referance to God. He was nothing but a communist dupe (at the very least!), a phlagiarist, a sexually promiscuous whoremonger, and a man who stirred up riots wheree7ver he went. Religion was only a cloak for this man, for he gave up formal belief in what Christianity he knew about by the time he was an adult. I think it’s entirely appropiate that his graven image was carved by someone from Red China. One unbeliver should do the honors for another one.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, October 18, AD 2011 6:35pm

Take a pill. The man had a pair of quondam Communist Party members in his entourage. That was all. His social ideology bore little resemblance to Marxism. His public career began in 1955. The mass rioting in this country occurred during the years running from 1964 to 1971. Care to name which, of more than 700 urban riots which occurred during those years, was catalyzed by one of his public appearances?

trackback
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 12:05am

[…] The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial: No Mention of God – Motley Monk, TAC […]

dymphna
dymphna
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 8:54am

Religion wasn’t his first interest. He had to become a minister in order to be a respected civil rights voice. I wouldn’t worry about this. As for Mr. Dalton, most of those rioting during his appearances were the segregationists.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 10:24am

Art, King’s commnist connections were well known enough that the Kennedy’s told him to distance himself from all known Red associates that he had. Also King attended the Highlander Folk School which was founded by communists. Quondam, Art?
His social ideology was nothing more than the social gospel and the social justice garbage pushed by liberals and communists. That was his real religion, since he abandoned any Christianity he had by the time he was an adult.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the phrase “stirred up riots”. “Stirred up violence” would be the right phrase to use. King’s so-called “non-violence” provoked violence in every city he went to. If you defy a lawfull order from a police officer, you’re going to provoke force from the same. As for the segregationist rioting, could it be that King’s provocative methods of forcing blacks into places they were not wanted (like restraunts) drove many people into a frenzy? Oh, and I also noticed that children were put in harms way (like in Birmingham ) by civil rights organizers. Was this part of the social justice thingee? Just asking.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 10:44am

King was a flawed messenger of a righteous cause. The deprivation of basic civil rights that Blacks had suffered through for centuries in our country was a blot on American honor. He deserves to be honored by all Americans for his role in removing that blot.

westcoastcatholic
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 10:47am
Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 11:11am

King’s commnist connections were well known enough that the Kennedy’s told him to distance himself from all known Red associates that he had.

The ‘known red associates’ were two men, Stanley Levison and Jack O’Dell, who had been members of the Communist Party prior to 1958.

Pinky
Pinky
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 12:01pm

This site gives the quotations to be engraved on the memorial. Among them:

“We are determined here in Montgomery to work until justice runs ‘down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.’”

“To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.”

“Hatred paralyzes life, love releases it. Hatred confuses life, love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life, love illuminates it.”

None of them uses the word “God”, but they are definitely the words of a preacher. I wouldn’t look at them and think that they were minimizing the role of Christian faith in the man’s life.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 12:09pm

Art, the “Civil Rights” movement was shot through with leftists, communists, and socialists from the very begining, so there was a heck of a lot more commies than these “known ones, in the movement. A simple google search will confirm this. BTW Art, you forgot Bayard Ruskin, a queer, as well as a communist.
Don, I’m surprised that you would use that logical fallacy “He was a flawed messenger of a rightous cause”. Don, the civil rights movement was a radical , socialist humbug from the begining. Since you are a lawyer, an officer of the court, how can you call a movement that deliberately provoked violence to achieve its goals “a rightous cause”? The homosexual rights movement is using the exact same methods that the radical blacks used, are they “flawed messengers of a rightous cause” too?

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 1:41pm

I think you have confused Bayard Rustin with someone else. Antecedent to his association with MLK he was on the staff of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (IIRC his family was Quaker).

Rustin’s sexual perversions were something he was (given the time) eccentrically public about. At the same time, he had little or no involvement with political homosexuality. After 1964, he was a fairly marginal figure in an among black politicians, in great measure because he had no interest in promoting institutionalized political patronage. The organizations he was associated with were those of his own creation (The A. Philip Randolph Institute’) and Social Democrats, USA. The latter was a desendant of the old socialist party run by Penn Kemble and notable for being vigorously anti-Communist in a way common-and-garden politicians in the Democratic Party were not.

The Communist Party had in 1947 about 100,000 members. A decade later they were reduced to a few thousand. The Socialist Party was in 1947 a fairly benign organization more antagonistic to the Communist Party that was some elements of the Democratic Party. After 1950, it was of consequence only in Wisconsin; it had only a few thousand members elsewhere.

The fact that old Socialists were active in protests organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is of scant interest. The Communist Party itself was too small to cause much trouble even if its residual membership had retained the sort of organizational skill a previous generation of Communists had had.

Pinky
Pinky
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 2:09pm

Stephen, the difference between calling the civil rights movement a “righteous cause” and using the same designation for the homosexual rights movement should be obvious.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 2:29pm

“Don, the civil rights movement was a radical , socialist humbug from the begining.”
Bunk. There was nothing socialist or radical in Blacks being able to vote, drink from common water fountains, being free to eat at the restaurants they wished to patronize, and, in general, being treated as equals rather than as some sort of inferior species. King was completely non-violent, something that could not be said for the segregationists who were defending a shameful, and un-American, system.

Dan
Dan
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 2:43pm

Let us keep on track here, and keep our heads. There is not the slightest question about Mr King’s amorous adventures. To deny that he was a hypocrite of the first order is to deny reality. You may not like to hear that, just as I do not like to hear of the moral lapses of my own clergymen, but like it or not I have to face the evidence.

To those who heap scorn on others who point out that wherever Mr King went riots soon followed, again, face the realities. You can attribute whatever saintly qualities to him that you want if you believe in his cause, but you mustn’t expect everyone to share these illusions.

As for his Communist sympathies, they are too well catalogued to deny. Even Bobby Kennedy, a supporter of King, was worried about these connections and tried to make him see that such things would do him no good. King basically told him to take a hike. One of the words he used to Kennedy was “revenge” , which astounded Kennedy and made him think that this movement of King’s was not as lofty as had been previously believed. Apparently, in the somewhat twisted logic of Mr King it was necessary to punish whites for the supposed “crimes” of slaveholders, even those whites whose parents and grandparents emigrated to the US in the 20th century and had nothing whatever to do with slavery in the antebellum South.

As to the actual results of the King years, we have only to look around us. If you think that what is going on among blacks today is an improvement over what was going on in previous years, then I don’t know what to say to you. I seriously question what actual good was accomplished by these people. When I see an admitted 75% illegitimacy rate among blacks today (up from about 40% in the pre-civil rights days) I’m not sure these people have seen an improvement in their race. A “righteous cause” generally is promoted by good people for a good end and that being the case it might be difficult to call the 60s civil rights movement a righteous cause. One very obvious result of this cause has been to precisely reverse the injustices so that now it is whites (and white males in particular) who are holding the dirty end of the stick. True equality was not what the Kings of the world had in mind, and in that he and his followers succeeded all to well.

A statue of him in Washington, a city that lives in a delusional world, could not therefore be more appropriate.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 3:01pm

As to the actual results of the King years, we have only to look around us. If you think that what is going on among blacks today is an improvement over what was going on in previous years, then I don’t know what to say to you. I seriously question what actual good was accomplished by these people….

One very obvious result of this cause has been to precisely reverse the injustices so that now it is whites (and white males in particular) who are holding the dirty end of the stick.

Which is it? Were blacks subjected to injustices that were corrected by the civil rights movement or not? You can’t say that injustice was somehow reversed otherwise. And there is something of a logical error in mistaking correlation for causation: you need to bring more to the plate than the existence of black family breakdown with the legislative enforcement of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Black family structures have always been more vulnerable than middle class white ones–i.e., as far back as the turn of the 20th Century, black women were several times more likely to work outside of the home than white women.

And while I’m not a fan of affirmative action except for limited, restitutionary purposes, there is a world of difference between the problems of affirmative action and the statist viciousness of Jim Crow. Frankly, I don’t know what to say to anyone who argues otherwise.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 3:03pm

Bunk Dan. Before the Civil Rights Movement Blacks were effectively disenfranchised in the South and treated as third class helots. Treatment in the North was only marginally better. As Catholics we should rejoice that such injustice came to an end.

The pathologies that you observe among blacks are also present among whites. Whites now have an illegitimacy rate of 28.1% up from a 6% illegitimacy rate in 1970. I doubt if Blacks enjoying equal rights suddenly caused whites to more than quadruple their rate of illegitimacy in four decades. Such pathologies are not a result of the Civil Rights Movement but due to the Sexual Revolution, wrong-headed welfare policies, and the devastating impact of illlegal drugs, along with various other developments in our society.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 4:19pm

As for his Communist sympathies, they are too well catalogued to deny.

Two people associated with the staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had been members of the Communist Party. How does that translate into ‘well catalogued’ ‘Communist sympathies’? (There were a number of one-time Communists on the masthead of National Review as well, btw).

To those who heap scorn on others who point out that wherever Mr King went riots soon followed, again, face the realities.

Neither you nor Stephen Dalton have given us the time and place of even one riot (and you have 300-odd to choose from occuring between July of 1964 and April of 1968) coincident with one of Dr. King’s public appearances, much less a riot incited by Dr. King.

Pinky
Pinky
Wednesday, October 19, AD 2011 4:51pm

Dan – You say “let us keep on track here”. Fine. Where in the article was there any discussion of communism or philandery? Or, for that matter, of the more destructive elements within the civil rights movement, or of the increased rate of illegitimacy in recent years?

dymphna
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 10:49am

Dan, yesterday I took my elderly uncle to the hopsital for treatment. In the 1950s that would not have been possible in my town. Before King the hospital was segregated and there was nothing for blacks. My grandfather died at home in 1960 because the staff would not treat him. When my mother was a girl whites would not allow blacks to worship in the same parish. Thanks to St. Katherine Drexel a church for blacks was built. Today I go to whatever parish I feel like going to. Everything has changed, thank God.
King was a flawed man. I’m not sure how Christian he really was. He was an adulterer. On the night before he died he was with a woman who was not his wife. We’ve all heard the stories. And yet, I also know that if it wasn’t for King I would not have the wonderful life I have now. Good was done.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 10:59am

Dan, thanks for backing me up on this.
Don, you make a big deal out of these three things, voting, drinking from segregated drinking fountains, and wanting to eat in white restraunts. Don, the reasons why blacks were denied the right to vote was that in the post Civil War period, the blacks were pawns of the Repubican Party. The federal government was also forcing blacks into government offices against the will of the disfranchised Southern people. The blacks were told by the Feds they were the equals of the beaten Southerners. This led to aggressive behaviour by the blacks against the whites that led to violation of persons and property. The reaction? Massive passive and active resistance against this early attempt at social enginering by the federal government. Increased illfeelings between the North and South. Increased illfeelings between blacks and whites. This was good, right?
Drinking from common water fountains? Don, in light of what I just said, do you really think that would have been a good idea back then? Would you have really wanted a black person beaten or killed because they drank from a white’s only fountain?
Wanting to eat in a restraunt they wished to patronize? Restraunts are usually private property, are they not? If I don’t want someone on my property, I have the right to tell them they are not welcome to do so.
Maybe it wasn’t socialistic for blacks to want these things, but as I’ve already said, the civil rights movement was dominated by liberal, socialistic, and outright commnistic elements from the very start. The blacks are worst off than they were 60 years ago. All I have to do to see proof of this is to read todays edition of the Peoria Journal Star. About once or twice a month another senseless shooting or murder occurs on the south side, were most of the blacks live. One shooting occured a mile and a half from were I live. The shooters and the victims were southsiders. And I live ten miles out in the country from Peoria! It was the socialist enginering that has been going on in this country since the post civil war days that has caused a lot of this garbage. It will only get better when the American people decide that the government has no right to dictate to them who they can associate with

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 11:11am

Blacks were denied their rights Stephen because of simple racism. Your attempts to justify it are wrong. If you had been born with a black skin instead of a white skin you would regard such attempts to justify the treatment of Blacks as third class helots as completely shameful, which, indeed, they are.

Paul W Primavera
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 11:32am

I agree that MLK Jr was hardly an example of Christian chastity. That commandment about adultery was more than an inconvenience to him. But the overall effect he had on society has, I think, been salutory. Yes, there probably is more crime, discontent and unrest in black communities than in white. I am not trained in the sociology to understand all the reasons for this. But in the last analysis, God created all men equal in dignity. St. Paul said there is no Jew or Greek in God’s sight; taken to the next level, doesn’t that mean there is no white man or black man in God’s sight, but just men?

By the way, with all this talk about MLK Jr. and Civil Rights and Blacks vs Whites, is there anything wrong with me (white or Caucasian by accident of birth) dating that pretty grocery store lady (black or of African descent by accident of birth) whom I asked to dinner the other day? I have to telephone her tonight to confirm the arrangements.

PS, I’m going to dinner with her anyways, no matter what anyone says, and might even take her to next week’s Bible Study on Romans, but I was just wondering…………

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 11:38am

“is there anything wrong with me (white or Caucasian by accident of birth) dating that pretty grocery store lady (black or of African descent by accident of birth) whom I asked to dinner the other day? I have to telephone her tonight to confirm the arrangements.”

No, unless she is a fan of Barry Manilow. Some things are simply beyond the pale.

Paul W Primavera
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 11:42am

Agreed, Donald. You crack me up!

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 12:59pm

The federal government was also forcing blacks into government offices against the will of the disfranchised Southern people

Would you care to explain why black citizens should not compete for elective and appointive offices? Or why their freedom to do so should be at the discretion of the proximate white population?

It will only get better when the American people decide that the government has no right to dictate to them who they can associate with

You are confounding laws on ‘public accommodations’, ‘equal employment opportunity’ and ‘open housing’, which do interfere with freedom of contract and association by compelling certain sorts of economic relations which would not otherwise take place, with the whole body of Jim Crow law and practice. The courts and the police were badly corrupted and comprehensively untrustworthy; retail enterprises and public facilities were segregated by law; black clientele were short-changed in public works and services; and black taxpayers were denied the franchise through a combination of chicanery and violence. There is not one libertarian argument in favor of any of these other measures. Stop it.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 2:31pm

Don, you claim I’m trying to justify racism. Really? In all the posts I have made on TAC on King, I have not made one statement claiming Blacks are biologically inferior to Whites. I don’t believe that God made the Black man’s genetics inferior to mine. Since I have some Black ancestory, I don’t see how I can believe that a part of me is inferior to the rest of me. All of my criticisms have been about bad behaviors and false beliefs. is criticizing bad behaviors and false beliefs the new racism? OMG, i’m a racist pig! LOL! Well then, I guess it’s racist to mention the overwhelming cases of Black/White crime interactions involve the White guy as the victim? And Don, yes there was racism in the South, of course there was! But as I already pointed out, the policy of the federal government toward the defeated Southerners and the aggressive behavior of the Blacks toward the Whites under their new freedom caused the feelings toward the Blacks to harden further. So it’s no wonder why the Blacks were treated like helots when the Reconstruction ended. The Whites were afraid of Blacks because of what happened during that time. They wanted to be safe from what they endured during that period. The only way these people, scarred by the war and the occupation, thought they could be safe was to practise rigid segragation. From our viewpoint of 150 years in the future, what they did was draconian. From their point of view, they were trying to insure the safety of their communities from the terror and anarchy of the Reconstruction era. It’s a pity that the majority of the posters here, with the exception of Dan, can’t see past their deeply held emotional prejudices and biases to actually do some reading in books and articles that don’t parrot the establishment line.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 3:00pm

No Stephen, Blacks were effectively disenfranchised for almost a century after the Civil War. To try to write this off simply as an after effect of the Civil War is not accurate. Blacks were disenfranchised because they were blacks and for no other reason. “Redeemer” white governments after Reconstruction fought to take away the franchise from Blacks not because they were Republicans but because they were Black. Evidence for this is demonstrated by the fact that there were a few areas of white Republican strength, most notably in East Tennessee. No action was taken by the “Redeemer” governments to take the franchise away from White Republicans.

Senator “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman of South Carolina on March 23, 1900 in a speech in the Senate summed up what happened to the rights of blacks throughout the South:

“We did not disfranchise the negroes until 1895. Then we had a constitutional convention convened which took the matter up calmly, deliberately, and avowedly with the purpose of disfranchising as many of them as we could under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. We adopted the educational qualification as the only means left to us, and the negro is as contented and as prosperous and as well protected in South Carolina to-day as in any State of the Union south of the Potomac. He is not meddling with politics, for he found that the more he meddled with them the worse off he got. As to his “rights”—I will not discuss them now. We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be equal to the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him. I would to God the last one of them was in Africa and that none of them had ever been brought to our shores. But I will not pursue the subject further.”

Of course “Pitchfork” Ben prettied up the process for a national audience. Rights were taken away from Blacks in South Carolina through a long process of violence and murder. Tillman was involved in one notorious incident, the Hamburg massacre, that Tillman bragged about when he ran for governor in 1890.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_Massacre

Race hatred cause the disenfranchisement of Blacks and nothing else.

Pinky
Pinky
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 3:19pm

I’m not going to argue with Don about history. I will say this, though, about Don’s response to Stephen: so what? Does the reason for segregation 100 years ago in any way affect the righteousness of the cause of civil rights 50 years ago? Dan says that a righteous cause is promoted by good people for a good end. I’d disagree with the first part of that statement, but again, that doesn’t change the last part. Is equality of the races a worthy goal or not? At some point I think Stephen’s got to come to terms with the fact that he is – effectively – arguing that equality isn’t a worthy goal.

Paul Primavera
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 4:07pm

“Is equality of the races a worthy goal or not?”

All men regardless of race are created equal in dignity. God does that. Individual men can recognize and accept that, or can reject that and produce, perpetuate and exacerbate racial strife.

Now being created equal in dignity does not necessarily imply equality in function or ability. For example, Caucasians may have a propensity to immunity to certain diseases that those of African descent generally don’t. And vice versa: those of African descent may have a propensity to immunity to certain diseases that Caucasians don’t. I am not a physician, so I don’t know, but that certainly seems credible. Does that make them unequal in dignity?

There may be other differences. Perhaps those of descent from certain places in Africa may tend generally to be better runners overall, and those from certain places in Europe may tend generally to be better swimmers overall. I used to run triathlons and a lot of times I saw that to be the case, but there were always exceptions and I didn’t do a scientific study, so I simply assumed that the black guy who beat me on the road race did so because he trained harder and longer than I did, and I reaped the reward for slacking off. Right now I am over weight and out of shape, and regardless of race I would be last at the finish line.

😉

Maybe there are certain cognitive talents that those of African descent generally excel at, and perhaps there are other cognitive talents that those of Caucasian descent generally excel at. The same is true of those of Oriental descent. I don’t know. But these are gross generalizations and they can’t be used to make rules to apply to every individual case. More importantly, they detract not one iota from being created equal in dignity.

The point is that God created man with diversity, and diversity is a good thing (I can’t believe I wrote, “diversity is a good thing,” given all the loaded liberal connotations that has). God wasn’t boring in what He did. He didn’t create everyone the same. He gave us different gifts and talents and abilities. Some may be equally spread throughout the major racial groups and some may not be – I am no geneticist, so I wouldn’t know. Indeed, none of that makes the black race, white race, yellow race or red race inferior or superior. It makes them not the same. Nevertheless, one can’t say that “blacks are dumber and whites are smarter” or vice versa. That’s ridiculous (and completely contradicted by the facts). Rather, God loves diversity, but when it comes to sin and righteousness and salvation, there is no Jew or Greek, no black or white. If we don’t treat each other as we expect to be treated (i.e., the Golden Rule), then there is a very warm place for us.

On a side note, if there is extra-terrestrial intelligence, I think the reason why these aliens haven’t visited Earth (or if they have, they’ve been awfully secretive) is because if this strife and prejudice is how we treat each other, then what would we do to them were they to reveal themselves?

Paul Primavera
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 4:12pm

Wow, Don’s quote of Senator “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman reveal him to be quite the racist!

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 4:31pm

That was one of “Pitchfork’s” tamer addresses Paul. In South Carolina speeches he usually didn’t both using the term “negro”.

Kevin J
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 6:23pm

I’m not going to cast aspersions on MLK without mentioning his deep courage and resolve. His tactics were sometimes questionable and he was clearly being manipulated at times. But this man went up against people who bombed churches, for Pete’s sake.

Donald R. McClarey writes:
“The pathologies that you observe among blacks are also present among whites. Whites now have an illegitimacy rate of 28.1% up from a 6% illegitimacy rate in 1970. I doubt if Blacks enjoying equal rights suddenly caused whites to more than quadruple their rate of illegitimacy in four decades. Such pathologies are not a result of the Civil Rights Movement but due to the Sexual Revolution, wrong-headed welfare policies, and the devastating impact of illlegal drugs, along with various other developments in our society.”

Unfortunately, I think a good case can be made that the civil rights movement enabled the sexual revolution and the expulsion of morally conservative Catholics from power.

Look at the reaction to the Moynihan Report on illegitimacy in the black community. Because of hypersensitive anti-racism, he was accused of undermining the civil rights movement for making recommendations that would strengthen the black community.

There are real racial disparities in sexual vice. If society upheld traditional morals, for instance, by shaming and marginalizing men who fathered children out of wedlock, these penalties would adversely affect the black community. The civil rights movement was all about removing disparate treatment, so public morals couldn’t be defended.

Sexual revolutionaries did co-opt the civil rights movement, but that’s in part because it was amenable to co-optation.

Most of all, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made “sex” a protected class and thus enabled feminists to take power and trash the culture.

But also the civil rights movement itself was bad for urban Catholics.

We all know that Margaret Sanger and PP co-opted black leaders. Black civil rights leaders opposed to birth control were marginalized. The civil rights movement pushed other co-opted black leaders into positions of power and influence, at the expense of both white southerners and northern Catholic ethnics (and the most morally conservative blacks).

At the same time, integration efforts helped destroy uniformly Catholic neighborhoods and labor unions. Racial minorities received preferential treatment within the Democrats, in government employment and in the major media. Anti-racism helped create a soft approach to crime, which made longtime Catholic neighborhoods unsafe.

How many beautiful parish churches have had to be abandoned because the neighborhood became entirely Black Protestant? How could the sexual revolution possibly have been checked, if traditionally Catholic centers of power were destroyed?

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 6:47pm

“Unfortunately, I think a good case can be made that the civil rights movement enabled the sexual revolution and the expulsion of morally conservative Catholics from power. ”

No, except for taking place at the same time. You might as well say that Vatican II caused the Sexual Revolution.

“Most of all, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made “sex” a protected class and thus enabled feminists to take power and trash the culture.”

Untrue. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act merely bans discrimination in employment on the basis of sex. The feminist movement was not created by Title VII and would have existed without it.

“Black civil rights leaders opposed to birth control were marginalized. The civil rights movement pushed other co-opted black leaders into positions of power and influence, at the expense of both white southerners and northern Catholic ethnics (and the most morally conservative blacks).”

Simply untrue. Blacks rose to political power where they predominated. Southern whites and urban Catholics continued to wield power in areas where they predominated. The Democrat party as a whole shifted to the Left, a trend which was underlined when McGovern was nominated in 1972, largely a product of the anti-war movement and not the civil rights movement. Many southern whites and northern Catholics began a trek to the Republican party as a result.

“At the same time, integration efforts helped destroy uniformly Catholic neighborhoods and labor unions.”

Untrue as to Catholic neighborhoods and the composition of labor unions where Catholics are in the majority. Plenty of such areas remain up in the Chicago metro area for example. Civil rights legislation allowed blacks to live where they wished and not to be discriminated against when they joined unions. Certainly the perpetuation of a regime of official racial discrimination against blacks was too high a price to keep some Catholic neighborhoods lilly-white?

There are legitimate grievances due to affirmative action, which is simply racial discrimination with the colors reversed. However, the basic thrust of the original Civil Rights movement to end the treatment of blacks as third class helots in this nation was right, proper and very long overdue.

Kevin J.
Kevin J.
Thursday, October 20, AD 2011 10:33pm

Re: Civil rights act and “sex” as a protected category

Allan Carlson’s essay “THE FAMILY FACTORS” backs up my interpretation of the 1964 act as the revolutionary watershed for feminism. But he also reminds me that the addition of “sex” to the bill was a desperate, foolish attempt by segregationists to kill it. So arguably the segregationists are responsible for the boost to feminism, not the civil rights movement proper. So I grant my point was tangential about only an indirect consequence of the CRM.

McGovern implemented racial and sex-based quotas in the Democratic Party. He unseated Mayor Daley’s Illinois delegation to the 1972 convention and put Jesse Jackson’s delegation in, on the grounds the delegation was not diverse enough. This is a clear instance of Catholic “machine politics” succumbing to the push for diversity. Examples like these played out on the state and local levels, gradually pushing out moral conservatives on the grounds they aren’t diverse enough. Would preference for Jesse Jackson over Mayor Daley really have happened without the civil rights movement and the dedication to anti-racism it created? (Granted, Jackson was pro-life at the time, but his allies sure weren’t.)

“Untrue as to Catholic neighborhoods and the composition of labor unions where Catholics are in the majority. Plenty of such areas remain up in the Chicago metro area for example.”

I’m not talking about total destruction, I’m talking about destruction extensive enough to destroy Catholics’ capacities to set the agenda in a major city or in a major labor union.

“Certainly the perpetuation of a regime of official racial discrimination against blacks was too high a price to keep some Catholic neighborhoods lilly-white?”

In some neighborhoods, it was a choice between keeping Catholic neighborhoods and having them replaced with non-Catholic blacks. The Catholics scattered to the lilly-white suburbs. So you still end up with segregation, but also an empty parish church and a more atomized Catholic community.

I don’t think that’s a fair trade-off. If it was the only way to fix things, then it was a tragedy.

“There are legitimate grievances due to affirmative action, which is simply racial discrimination with the colors reversed. However, the basic thrust of the original Civil Rights movement to end the treatment of blacks as third class helots in this nation was right, proper and very long overdue.”

Affirmative action or its equivalent is the major way for companies and governments to defend themselves against discrimination lawsuits and bad publicity from CRM-descended groups. Given these factors, I don’t see how you can avoid preferential practices favoring protected classes.

Back to the point about the sexual revolution getting a boost from the civil rights movement, it’s clear that the civil rights movement helped discredit the past and helped weaken “mere conservatism,” which included conservative sexual morals. The mechanisms I’ve tried to describe also weakened Catholic communities, and thus their ability to resist the sexual revolution.

What do you think of my point about the Moynihan Report? Surely fear of frivolous or self-serving accusations of racism still keeps people from speaking out about the problems of family breakdown.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 5:33am

“McGovern implemented racial and sex-based quotas in the Democratic Party. He unseated Mayor Daley’s Illinois delegation to the 1972 convention and put Jesse Jackson’s delegation in, on the grounds the delegation was not diverse enough. This is a clear instance of Catholic “machine politics” succumbing to the push for diversity. ”

It was a clear indication that McGovern would go down to a truly devastating defeat in Illinois in November which he did, along with the rest of the nation except Massachusetts which he barely won. The Daley machine remained alive and well until ’76 when Daley died. His son, Richie the Lesser, resurrected the machine and ran Chicago for two decades until his recent retirement. The levers of power in Cook county remain largely in white hands, with some black and a few Hispanic hands tossed in, almost all of them corrupt no matter what the skin color.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 5:38am

“I’m not talking about total destruction, I’m talking about destruction extensive enough to destroy Catholics’ capacities to set the agenda in a major city or in a major labor union. ”

Untrue as to Chicago where the Mayor, until the beginning of this year, was a Catholic, as were most of his chief lieutenants. Of course Daley was a pro-abort which is typical of urban Catholic politicians. Pardon me if I do not weep for any problems collecting votes which anti-discrimination legislation has caused them. From a downstate perspective in Illinois there is little to choose between liberal white and liberal black Democrat politicians from Chicago, no matter what religion they claim to observe.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 5:49am

“But he also reminds me that the addition of “sex” to the bill was a desperate, foolish attempt by segregationists to kill it.”

Perhaps, historians are not certain. In any case it was almost completely superfluous since Congress had passed the Equal Pay Act in 1963.

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/epa.cfm

The addition of Tital VII had no impact on the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and was largely considered a non-issue at the time.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 5:53am

“The Catholics scattered to the lilly-white suburbs. So you still end up with segregation, but also an empty parish church and a more atomized Catholic community.”

The white exodus to the suburbs was already beginning prior to the Civil Rights Act. People went to the suburbs for other reasons than race, as many former denizens of urban rat mazes would be happy to attest. Blacks of course were beginning a similar exodus. The largest trend in the past decade has been Blacks moving to the South in very large numbers. These shifts in populations are an on-going process and have many causes with race, increasingly, less and less significant.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 5:59am

“Back to the point about the sexual revolution getting a boost from the civil rights movement, it’s clear that the civil rights movement helped discredit the past and helped weaken “mere conservatism,” which included conservative sexual morals.”

Actually the Civil Rights Movement coincided with the rise of the modern conservative political movement. Politically conservatives in this country are much stronger than they were in 1964. An honest look at the past is always a good thing. History always needs to be painted “warts and all”. In regard to civil rights, America, at her best, has always had people who have spoken up for those left out of the American commitment to “liberty and justice for all”. The Civil Rights Movement underlined the American capacity to take a hard look in the mirror and correct abuses through the political process. This is an on-going process that will never be complete as long as the nation endures, and I thank God for it.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 6:03am

“What do you think of my point about the Moynihan Report? Surely fear of frivolous or self-serving accusations of racism still keeps people from speaking out about the problems of family breakdown.”

The white illegitimacy rate is now higher than the black illegitimacy rate that Moynihan decried. You are correct that fear of being called racist is one reason that this issue is not addressed. Another reason is that sexual promiscuity has become a sacred cow in our society and focusing on illegitmacy reminds people of what a truly destructive force casual sex outside of marriage is. I doubt that there is much that legislation can do to address this problem. It will be only addressed by a moral reawakening of the population as a whole, and a return to God.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 8:43am

Don, E Michael Jones would disagree with you on all your replys to Kevin J. in his book “The Slaughter Of The Cities” he documents that the destruction of the inner cities was planned by liberal social enginers to deliberately destroy Catholic neighbourhoods and in “The Revolutionary Jew” he shows that the so-called “Civil Rights” movement was created and controled by liberal New York Jews, not to help blacks gain their rights, but to use the Blacks to achieve their own goals of political aggrandizement. heck the only black guy they had on board for years was W.E.B DuBois, who ironically was a segregationist and a spporter of Planned parenthood.(Then called the American birth Control League.)

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 9:22am

Stephen E. Dalton, thus far in this discussion you have manufactured an apologetic for the post-Reconstruction consolidation of white supremacy (with imaginative claims about ‘aggressive’ freed blacks) and now are acting as a conduit for E. Michael Jones’ conspiratorialist tripe. It is stupid and you should stop it (and quit complaining that others draw the conclusion that you have it in for large blocs of people).

Mark Shea
Mark Shea
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 10:27am

Just a note of appreciation for the concerted pushback against Dalton’s lunacy. One of the odd things I notice about his rants is that just before offering a defence of racism or anti-semitism, he always claims some sort of descent from Jews or black people, as though this is supposed to defuse what he is about to say. My kudos, particularly, to Donald for steadfastly opposing Dalton’s slimey stuff.

Kevin J
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 11:06am

“Untrue as to Chicago where the Mayor, until the beginning of this year, was a Catholic, as were most of his chief lieutenants. Of course Daley was a pro-abort which is typical of urban Catholic politicians.”

My speculation would be that urban Catholic leaders’ shift to pro-abortion ideology was in part due to maintaining their electability in the face of the flight of conservative Catholics from the Democrats and from the cities. While other factors probably had greater impact, I think it’s safe to say that the fallout from the civil rights movement was a contributing factor to this flight.

Are we sure Jones’ Slaughter of Cities is a totally fringe work? A somewhat prominent Jesuit priest recommended it to me a while back, before Jones went into full anti-Jewish mode. (I found Jones kinda scary even then, which is why the recommendation was so surprising and memorable.)

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 12:12pm

My speculation would be that urban Catholic leaders’ shift to pro-abortion ideology was in part due to maintaining their electability in the face of the flight of conservative Catholics from the Democrats and from the cities. While other factors probably had greater impact, I think it’s safe to say that the fallout from the civil rights movement was a contributing factor to this flight.

The hollowing out of Catholic belief and practice in the last fifty years is an unhappy thing to behold. The thinking and behavior of nominally Catholic politicians is an aspect of this. That the Catholic population in metropolitan areas is distributed among the municipalities of each metropolis differently than was the case in 1947 likely has only a small effect on the sort of Catholic politician you seen in prominent offices. (In any case, inner city blacks are not promising material for the ranks of those pushing contraception or sodomy).

Are we sure Jones’ Slaughter of Cities is a totally fringe work?

Yes we are.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 12:18pm

Kevin, the problem is that too many Catholics in this country are completely happy to vote for pro-aborts. A case in point is Massachusetts. Massachusetts has a black population of 6.6%, half the national percent of the black population. 44% of Massachusetts is Catholic. The entire Massachusetts congressional delegation I believe is pro-abort. Remember the heroes’ sendoff that pro-abort Kennedy got at his funeral Mass in Boston? Remember Father Drinan, Massachusetts pro-abort Congressman, who helped give cover for other pro-abort Democrat politicians? Remember Notre Dame giving a heroes’ reception to Obama?

If Catholics, especially Catholic Democrats, voted for only pro-life candidates, abortion would be illegal in this country within the next two years. Sadly, where Catholics are strongest in this country in numbers, the pro-life cause tends to be weakest. Catholics running for office as pro-aborts has nothing to do with the Civil Rights Movement, and everything to do with their knowledge that they will not suffer for such a stance at the polls by unified opposition from their fellow Catholics.

Paul W Primavera
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 1:14pm

While I have sometimes agreed with what Stephen has written on other subjects, when it comes to blacks and Jews, I find myself disagreeing. Sorry, Stephen, but we differ here.

I have noticed particularly from very traditionalist Catholics a marked distaste for and sometimes almost a revulsion against other Christian denominations and Jews. I am not certain where that comes from. And where all of this stuff against blacks comes from is unfathomable.

However, while I disagree with Stephen’s stuff on these points, I don’t think Stephen himself is slimey (and a close reading of Mark’s comment reveals that he didn’t say that, either). In fact, I see eye-to-eye with him on other points, but maybe that’s because I am unashamedly to the right of Attilla the Hun.

😉

Paul W Primavera
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 1:16pm

“Catholics running for office as pro-aborts has nothing to do with the Civil Rights Movement, and everything to do with their knowledge that they will not suffer for such a stance at the polls by unified opposition from their fellow Catholics.”

But if unrepentent, then they WILL suffer for such a stance in the next life. Because Priests and Bishops don’t tell them that, they think they can do whatever they want.

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Friday, October 21, AD 2011 2:10pm

Yes, King was imperfect. Me too. Yes, King was a hypocrite. Me too. All good men disfavor sin and say so, yet all are sinners. There are two roads in life: one can either try unsuccessfully to conform one’s actions to one’s conscience, or one can simply conform one’s conscience to one’s actions. Only the former are called hypocrites.

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