"'' AND COALITION POLITICS

by

Distributed by The A. Philip Randolph Institute 217 West 125th Street, New York, N.Y. 10027 Telephone: 666-9510 "BLACK POWER" AND COALITION POLITICS

BAYARD RUSTIN

HERE are two Americas-black and sttion to win a maximum of two congressional T white-and nothing has more clearly seats and control of eighty local counties. • (Car­ revealed the divisions between them than the de­ michael, incidentally, is in the paradoxical posi­ bate currently raging around the slogan of "black tion of screaming at liberals-wanting only to power." Despite-or perhaps because of-the fact "get whitey off my back" -and simultaneously that this slogan lacks any clear definition, it has needing their support: after all, he can talk about succeeded in galvanizing emotions on all sides, Negroes taking over Lowndes County only be­ with many whites seeing it as the expression of a cause there is a fairly liberal federal government new and many Negroes taking it as a warn­ to protect him should Governor Wallace decide ing to whjte people that Negroes will 11.0 longer to eliminate this pocket of black power.) Now tolerate brutality and violence. But even within there might be a certain value in having two the Negro community itself, "black power" has Negro congressmen from the South, but obvious­ touched off a major debate-the most bitter the ly they could do nothing by themselves to recon­ community has experienced since the days of struct the face of America. Eighty sheriffs, eighty Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois, and tax assessors, and eighty school-board members one which threatens to ravage the entire civil­ might ease the tension for a while in their com­ rights movement. Indeed, a serious split has al­ munities, but they alone could not create jobs ready developed between advocates of "black and build low-cost housing; they alone could not power" like Floyd McKissick of coRE and Stokely supply quality integrated education. Carmichael of SNCC on the one hand, and Dr. The relevant question, moreover, is not wheth­ Martin Luther King of scLc, of the er a politician is black or white, but what forces NAACP, and of the Urban League he represents. Manhattan has had a succession of on the other. Negro borough presidents, and yet the schools are There is no question, then, that great passions increasingly segregated. Adam Clayton Powell are involved in the debate over the idea of "black and William Dawson have both been in Congress power"; nor, as we shall see, is there any question for many years; the former is responsible for a that these passions have their roots in the psycho­ rider on school intergration that never gets passed, logical and political frustrations of the Negro and the latter is responsible for keeping the community. Nevertheless, I would contend that Negroes of Chicago tied to a mayor who had to "black power" not only lacks any real value for see riots and death before he would put eight­ the civil-rights movement, but that its propaga­ dollar sprinklers on water hydrants in the sum­ tion is positively harmful. It diverts the movement mer. I am not for one minute arguing that from a meaningful debate over strategy and tac­ Powell, Dawson, and Mrs. Motley should be im­ tics, it isolates the Negro community, and it en­ peached. What I am saying is that if a politician courages the growth of anti-Negro forces. is elected because he is black and is deemed to be In its simplest and most innocent guise, "black entitled to a "slice of the pie," he will behave in power" merely means the effort to elect Negroes one way; if he is elected by a constituency pressing to office in proportion to Negro strength within for social reform, he will, whether he is white or the population. There is, of course, nothing wrong black, behave in another way. with such an objective in itself, and nothing in­ herently radical in the idea of pursuing it. But in SouTHERN Negroes, despite exhortations from 's extravagant rhetoric about sNcc to organize themselves into a Black Pan­ "taking over" in districts of the South where ther party, are going to stay in the Democratic Negroes are in the majority, it is important to party-to them it is the party of progress, the New recognize that Southern Negroes are only in a po- Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society­ and they are right to stay. For sNcc's Black Pan­ BAYARD RUSTIN is executive director of the A. Philip Ran­ ther perspective is simultaneously utopian and re- dolph Institute. His previous contributions to CoMMENTARY include the now famous article, "From Protest to Politics: The Future of the " (February 1965). •see "The Negroes Enter Southern Politics" by Pat Wat­ ters, Dissent, July-August 1966. actionary-the former for the by now obvious rea­ their share, finally won enough power to over­ son that one-tenth of the population cannot come their initial disabilities. But the truth is that accomplish much by itself, the latter because such it was through alliances with other groups (in a party would remove Negroes from the main area political machines or as part of the trade-union of political struggle in this country (particularly movement) that the Irish and the and the in the one-party South, where the decisive battles Italians acquired the power to win their rightful are fought out in Democratic primaries), and place in American society. They did not "pull would give priority to the issue of race precisely themselves up by their own bootstraps" -no group at a time when the fundamental questions facing in American society has ever done so; and they the Negro and American society alike are econom­ most certainly did not make isolation their pri­ ic and social. It is no accident that the two main mary tactic. proponents of "black power," Carmichael and McKissick, should now be co-sponsoring a confer­ N SOME quarters, "black power" connotes not ence with Adam Clayton Powell and Elijah I an effort to increase the number of Negroes in Muhammad, and that the leaders of New York elective office but rather a repudiation of non­ CORE should recently have supported the machine violence in favor of Negro "self-defense." Actually candidate for Surrogate-because he was the this is a false issue, since no one has ever argued choice of a Negro boss-rather than the candidate that Negroes should not defend themselves as in­ of the reform movement. By contrr.st, Martin dividuals from attack. • Non-violence has been Luther King is working in Chicago with the Indus­ advocated as a tactic for organized demonstrations trial Union Department of the AFL-CIO and with in a society where Negroes are a minority and religious groups in a coalition which, if .Uccessful, where the majority controls the police. Propo­ will mean the end or at least the weakening of the nents of non-violence do not, for example, deny Daley-Dawson machine. that has the right to carry a gun The winning of the right of Negroes to vote in for protection when he visits his mother in Mis­ the South insures the eventual transformation of sissippi; what they question is the wisdom of his the Democratic party, now controlled primarily carrying a gun while participating in a demon­ by Northern machine politicians and Southern stration. Dixiecrats. The Negro vote will eliminate the There is, as well, a tactical side to the new em­ Dixiecrats from the party and from Congress, phasis on "self-defense" and the suggestion that which means that the crucial question facing us non-violence be abandoned. The reasoning here today is who will replace them in the South. Un­ is that turning the other cheek is not the way to less civil-rights leaders (in such towns as Jackson, win respect, and that only if the Negro succeeds ; Birmingham, ; and even to a in frightening the white man will the white man certain extent ) can organize grass-roots begin taking him seriously. The trouble with this clubs whose members will have a genuine political reasoning is that it fails to recognize that fear is voice, the Dixiecrats might well be succeeded by more likely to bring hostility to the surface than black moderates and black Southern-style machine respect; and far from prodding the "white power politicians, who would do little to push for need­ structure" into action, the new militant leader­ ed legislation in Congress and little to improve ship, by raising the slogan of black power and local conditions in the South. While I myself lowering the banner of non-violence, has ob­ would prefer Negro machines to a situation in scured the moral issue facing this nation, and per­ which Negroes have no power at all, it seems to mitted the President and Vice President to lecture me that there is a better alternative today-a lib­ us about "racism in reverse" instead of proposing eral-labor-civil rights coalition which would work more meaningful programs for dealing with the to make the Democratic party truly responsive to problems of unemployment, housing, and educa­ the aspirations of the poor, and which would de­ tion. velop support for programs (specifically those "Black power" is, of course, a somewhat nation­ outlined in A. Philip Randolph's $100 billion alistic slogan and its sudden rise to popularity Freedom Budget) aimed at the reconstruction of among Negroes signifies a concomitant rise in American society in the interests of greater social nationalist sentiment ('s autobiogra­ justice. The advocates of "black power" have no phy is quoted nowadays in , Mississippi such programs in mind; what they are in fact ar­ as well as in ). We have seen such guing for (perhaps unconsciously) is the creation nationalistic turns and withdrawals back into the of a new black establishment. ghetto before, and when we look at the conditions Nor, it might be added, are they leading the which brought them about, we find that they have Negro people along the same road which they much in common with the conditions of Negro imagine immigrant groups traveled so success­ fully in the past. Proponents of "black power"­ •As far back as 1934, A. Philip Randolph, Walter White, accepting a historical myth perpetrated by mod­ then executive secretary of the NAACP, Lester Granger, then executive director of the Urban League, and I joined a erates-like to say that the Irish and the Jews and committee to try to save the life of Odell Waller. Waller, a the Italians, by sticking together and demanding sharecropper, had murdered his white boss in self-defense. bfe at the present moment: conditions which lead counseled withdrawal into the ghetto, self-help, to despair over the goal of integration and to the and economic self-determination. belief that the ghetto will last forever. World War I aroused new hope in Negroes that It may, in the light of the many juridical and the rights removed at the turn of the century legislative victories which have been achieved in would be restored. More than 360,000 Negroes the past few years, seem strange that despair entered military service and went overseas; many should be so widespread among Negroes today. left the South seeking the good life in the North But anyone to whom it seems strange should re­ and hoping to share in the temporary prosperity flect on the fact that despite these victories created by the war. But all these hopes were quick­ Negroes today are in worse economic shape, live ly smashed at the end of the fighting. In the first in worse slums, and attend more highly segregated year following the war, more than seventy schools than in 1954. Thus-to recite the appalling, Negroes were lynched, and during the last six and appallingly familiar, statistical litany once months of that year, there were some twenty-four again-more Negroes are unemployed today than riots throughout America. White mobs took over in 1954; the gap between the wages of the Negro whole cities, flogging, burning, shooting, and tor­ worker and the white worker is wider; while the turing at will, and when Negroes tried to defend unemployment rate among white youths is de­ themselves, the violence only increased. Along creasing, the rate among Negro youths has in­ with this, Negroes were excluded from unions and creased to 32 per cent (and among Negro girls the pushed out of jobs they had won during the war, rise is even more startling). Even the one gain including federal jobs. which has been registered, a decrease in the un­ In the course of this period of dashed hope and employment rate among Negro adul~. is decep­ spreading segregation-the same period, incident­ tive, for it represents men who have been called ally, when a reorganized was back to work after a period of being laid off. In achieving a membership which was to reach into any event, unemployment among Negro men is the millions-the largest mass movement ever to still twice that of whites, and no new jobs have take root among working-class Negroes, Marcus been created. Garvey's "Back to " movement, was born. So too with housing, which is deteriorating in "Buy Black" became a slogan in the ghettos; faith the North (and yet the housing provisions of the in integration was virtually snuffed out in the 1966 civil-rights bill are weaker than the anti­ Negro community until the 1930's when the discrimination laws in several states which con­ cxo reawakened the old dream of a Negro-labor tain the worst ghettos even with these laws on alliance by announcing a policy of non-discrimi­ their books). And so too with schools: according nation and when the New Deal admitted Negroes to figures issued recently by the Department of into relief programs, WPA jobs, and public hous­ Health, Education and Welfare, 65 per cent of ing. No sooner did jobs begin to open up and first-grade Negro students in this country attend Negroes begin to be welcomed into mainstream schools that are from 90 to 100 per cent black. organizations than "Buy Black" campaigns gave (If in 1'954, when the Supreme Court handed way to "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" down the desegregation decision, you had been movements. A. Philip Randolph was able to or­ the Negro parent of a first-grade child, the chances ganize a massive on Washington demand­ are that this past June you would have attended ing a wartime FEPC; coRE was born and with it that child's graduation from a segregated high the non-violent sit-in technique; the NAACP suc­ school.) ceeded in putting an end to the white primaries To put all this in the simplest and most con­ in 1944. Altogether, World War II was a period of crete terms: the day-to-day lot of the ghetto Negro hope for Negroes, and the economic progress they has not been improved by the various judicial and made through wartime industry continued stead­ legislative measures of the past decade. ily until about 1948 and remained stable for a time. Meanwhile, the non-violent movement of ' EGROES are thus in a situation similar to that the 1950's and 60's achieved the desegregation of of the turn of the century, when Booker T. public accommodations and established the right ' shington advised them to "cast down their to vote. buckets" (that is to say, accommodate to segrega­ Yet at the end of this long fight, the Southern tion and disenfranchisement) and when even his Negro is too poor to use those integrated facilities leading opponent, W. E. B. Du Bois, was forced to and too intimidated and disorganized to use the advocate the development of a group economy in vote to maximum advantage, while the economic place of the direct-action boycotts, general strikes, position of the Northern Negro deteriorates and protest techniques which had been used in rapidly. the 1880's, before the enactment of the Jim-Crow The promise of meaningful work and decent laws. For all their differences, both Washington wages once held out by the anti-poverty programs and Du Bois then found it impossible to believe has not been fulfilled. Because there has been a that Negroes could ever be integrated into Amer­ lack of the necessary funds, the program has in ican society, and each in his own way therefore many cases been reduced to wrangling for posi- tions on boards or for lucrative staff jobs. Negro nationalistic slogans, with "black power" afford­ professionals working for the program have ing the same emotional release as "Back to earned handsome salaries-ranging from $14- to Africa" and "Buy Black" did in earlier periods $25,000-while young boys have been asked to plant of frustration and hopelessness. This is not only trees at $1.25 an hour. Nor have the Job Corps the case with the ordinary Negro in the ghetto; it camps made a significant dent in unemployment is also the case with leaders like McKissick and among Negro youths; indeed, the main benefici­ Carmichael, neither of whom began as a national­ aries of this program seem to be the private com­ ist or was at first cynical about the possibilities of panies who are contracted to set up the camps. integration. • It took countless beatings and 24 jailings-that, and the absence of strong and con­ HEN there is the war in Vietnam, which poses tinual support from the liberal community-to Tmany ironies for the Negro community. On persuade Carmichael that his earlier faith in coal­ the one hand, Negroes are bitterly aware of the ition politics was mistaken, that nothing was to be fact that more and more money is being spent on gained from working with whites, and that an al­ the war, while the anti-poverty progTam is being liance with the black nationalists was desirable. cut; on the other hand, Negro youths are enlisting In the areas of the South where SNCC has been in great numbers, as though to say that it is worth working so nobly, implementatior of the Civil the risk of being killed to learn a trade, to leave a Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 has been slow and dead-end situation, and to join the only institu­ ineffective. Negroes in many rural areas cannot tion in this society which seems really to be inte­ walk into the courthouse and register to vote. De­ grated. spite the voting-rights bill, they must file com­ The youths who rioted in Watts, ~leveland, plaints and the Justice Department must be called Omaha, Chicago, and Portland are the members to send federal registrars. Nor do children attend of a truly hopeless and lost generation. They can integrated schools as a matter of course. There, see the alien world of affluence unfold before too, complaints must be filed and the Department them on the TV screen. But they have already of Health, Education and Welfare must be noti­ failed in their inferior segregated schools. Their fied. Neither department has been doing an effec­ grandfathers were sharecroppers, their grand­ tive job of enforcing the bills. The feeling of mothers were domestics, and their mothers are do­ isolation increases among sNcc workers as each mestics too. Many have never met their fathers. legislative victory turns out to be only a token Mistreated by the local storekeeper, suspected by victory-significant on the national level, but not the policeman on the beat, disliked by their teach­ affecting the day-to-day lives of Negroes. Car­ ers, they cannot stand more failures and would michael and his colleagues are wrong in refusing rather retreat into the world of heroin than risk to support the 1966 bill, but one can understand looking for a job downtown or having their why they feel as they do. friends see them push a rack in the garment dis­ It is, in short, the growing conviction that the trict. Floyd McKissick and Stokely Carmichael Negroes cannot win-a conviction with much may accuse Roy Wilkins of being out of touch grounding in experience-which accounts for the with the Negro ghetto, but nothing more clearly new popularity of "black power." So far as the demonstrates their own alienation from ghetto ghetto Negro is concerned, this conviction ex­ youth than their repeated exhortations to these presses itself in hostility first toward the people young men to oppose the when so closest to him who have held out the most prom­ many of them tragically see it as their only way ise and failed to deliver (Martin Luther King, out. Yet there is no need to labor the significance Roy Wilkins, etc.), then toward those who have of the fact that the rice fields of Vietnam and the proclaimed themselves his friends (the liberals Green Berets have more to offer a Negro boy than and the labor movement), and finally toward the the streets of Mississippi or the towns of Alabama only oppressors he can see (the local storekeeper or !25th Street in New York. and the policeman on the corner) . On the leader­ The Vietnam war is also partly responsible for ship level, the conviction that the Negroes cannot the growing disillusion with non-violence among win takes other forms, principally the adoption Negroes. The ghetto Negro does not in general of what I have called a "no-win" policy. Why ask whether the United States is right or wrong to bother with programs when their enactment re­ be in Southeast Asia. He does, however, wonder sults only in "sham"? Why concern ourselves with why he is exhorted to non-violence when the the image of the movement when nothing signifi­ United States has been waging a fantastically cant has been gained for all the sacrifices made by brutal war, and it puzzles him to be told that he sNcc and coRE? Why compromise with reluctant must turn the other cheek in our own South while white allies when nothing of consequence can be we must fight for freedom in South Vietnam. achieved anyway? Why indeed have anything to Thus, as in roughly similar circumstances in do with whites at all? the past-circumstances, I repeat, which in the ag­ gregate foster the belief that the ghetto is destined •on Carmichael's background, sec "Two for sNcc" by to last forever-Negroes are once again turning to in the April 1965 COMMENTARY-ED. N THIS last point, it is extremely important demands for law and order and with opposition for white liberals to understand-as, one to police-review boards. Already they have divert­ gathers0 from their references to "racism in re­ ed the entire civil-rights movement from the hard verse," the President and the Vice President of the task of developing strategies to realign the major United States do not-that there is all the differ­ parties of this country, and embroiled it in a de­ ence in the world between saying, "I£ you don't bate that can only lead more and IRore to politics want me, I don't want you" (which is what some by frustration. proponents of "black power" have in effect been On the other side, however-the more important saying) and the statement, "Whatever you do, I side, let it be said-it is the business of those who don't want you" (which is what racism declares)­ reject the negative aspects of "black power" not It is, in other words, both absurd and immoral to to preach but to act. Some weeks ago President equate the despairing response of the victim with johnson, speaking at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the contemptuous assertion of the oppressor. It asserted that riots impeded reform, created fear, would, moreover, be tragic if white liberals al­ and antagonized the Negro's traditional friends. lowed verbal hostility on the part of Negroes to Mr . .Johnson, according to , drive them out of the movement or to curtail their expressed sympathy for the plight of the poor, the support for civil rights. The issue was injustice jobless, and the ill-housed. The government, he before "black power" became popular, and the noted, has been working to relieve their circum­ issue is still injustice. stances, but "all this takes time." In any event, even if ''black. power" had not One cannot argue with the President's position emerged as a slogan, problems would have arisen that riots are destructive or that they frighten in the relation between whites and Negro~ in the away allies. Nor can one find fault with his sym­ civil-rights movement. In the North, it was inevi­ pathy for the plight o£ the poor; surely the poor table that Negroes would eventually wish to run need sympathy. But one can question whether the their own movement and would n:bel against the government has been working seriously enough to presence of whites in positions of leadership as eliminate the conditions which lead to frustra­ yet another sign of white supremacy. In the South, tion-politics and riots. T'he President's very words, the well-intentioned white volunteer had the "all this takes time," will be understood by the canis stacked against him from the beginning. poor for precisely what they are-an excuse in­ Not only could he leave the struggle any time he ~tcad of a real program, a cover-up for the failure chose to do so, but a higher Yalue was set on his :o establish real priorities, and an indication that safety by the press and the government- apparent the administration has no real commitment to in the differing degrees of excitement generated create new jobs, better housing, and integrated by the imprisonment or murder of whites and schools. Negroes. The white person's imponance to the movement in the South was thus an ironic out­ FoR the truth is that it need only take ten years growth of racism and was therefore bound to cre­ to eliminate poverty-ten years and the $100 ate resentment. billion Freedom Budget recently proposed by But again: however understandable all this may A. Philip Randolph. In his introduction to the be as a response to objective conditions and to the budget (which was drawn up in consultation seeming irrelevance of so many hard-won victories with the nation's leading economists, and which to the day-to-day life of the mass of Negroes, the will be published later this month), Mr. Ran­ fact remains that the quasi-nationalist sentiments dolph points out: "The programs urged in the and "no-win'' policy lying behind the slogan of Freedom Budget attack all o£ the major, causes of "black power'' do no service to the Negro. Some poverty-unemployment and underemployment, nationalist emotion is, of course, inevitable, and substandard pay, inadequate social insurance and "black power" must be seen as part of the psycho­ welfare payments to those who cannot or should lqgical rejection of white supremacy, part of the not be employed; bad housing; deficiencies in rebellion against the stereotypes which have been health services, education, and training; and fiscal ascribed to Negroes for three hundred years. and monetary policies which tend to redistribute Nevertheless, pride, confidence, and a new iden­ income regressively rather than progressively. The tity cannot be won by glorifying blackness or at­ Freedom Budget leaves no room for discrimina­ tacking whites; they can only come from meaning­ tion in any form because its programs are ad­ ful action, from good jobs, and from real victories dressed to all who need more opportunity and im­ such as were achieved on the streets of Montgom­ proved incomes and living standards, not to just ery, Birmingham, and Selma. When SNCC and some of them." CORE went into the South, they awakened the The legislative precedent Mr. Randolph has in country, but now they emerge isolated and de­ mind is the 1945 Full Employment bill. This bill moralized, shouting a slogan that may afford a -conceived in its original form by Roosevelt to momentary satisfaction but that is calculated to prevent a postwar depression-would have made destroy them and their movement. Already their it public policy for the government to step in if the frustrated call is being answered with counter- private economy could not provide enough em- ployment. As passed finally by Congress in 1946, quences of racism and poverty at home today, it with many of its teeth removed, the bill had the might mean spending more than 20 billion dollars result of preventing the Negro worker, who had a year, although I think it quite possible that we finally reached a pay level about 55 per cent can fulfill these goals with a much smaller sum. It that of the white wage, from making any further would be intolerable, however, if our plan for do­ progress in closing that discriminatory gap; and mestic social reform were less audacious and less instead, he was pushed back by the chronically far-reaching than our international programs of a high unemployment rates of the 50's. Had the generation ago. original bill been passed, the public sector of our \Ve must see, therefore, in the current debate economy would have been able to insure fair and over "black power," a fantastic challenge to full employment. Today, with the spiralling American society to live up to its proclaimed thrust of automation, it is even more imperative in·inciples in the area of race by transforming it­ that we have a legally binding commitment to this self so that all men may li\'e equally and under goal. justice. \Ve must see to it that in rejecting "black Let me interject a word here to those who say power," we do not also reject the principle of that Negroes are asking for another handout and 1'\egro equality. Those people who would use the are refusing to help themselves. From the end of current debate ancl for the riots to abandon the the 19th century up to the last generation, the civil-rights movement leave us no choice hut to United States absorbed and provided economic question their original motivation. opportunity for tens of millions of immigrants. If anything, the next period will be more seri­ These people were usually uneducated and a ous and difficult than the preceding ones. It is g·ood many could not speak English. 'i'hey had much easier to establish the Negro's right to sit at nothing but their hard work to offer and they a \Voolwonh's counter than to fight for an inte­ labored long hours, often in miserable sweatshops grated community. It takes \'Cry little imagination and unsafe mines. Yet in a burgeoning economy to understand that the Negro should have the with a need for unskilled labor, they were able to right to vote, but it demands much creativity, pa­ find jobs, and as industrialization proceeded, they tience, and political stamina to plan, develop, and were gradually able to up the ladder to implement programs and priorities. It is one thing greater skills. Negroes who have been driven off to organize sentiment behind laws that do not dis­ the farm into a city life for which they are not turb consensus politics, and quite another to win prepared and who have entered an economy in battles for the redistribution of wealth. Many peo­ l which there is less and less need for unskilled ple who marched in Selma are not prepared to I labor, cannot be compared with these immigrants support a bill for a $2.00 minimum wage, to say of old. The tenements which were jammed by nothing of supporting a redefmition of work or a newcomers were way-stations of hope; the ghettos guaranteed annual income. of today have become dead-ends of despair. Yet just as the older generation of immigrants-in its T Is here that we who advocate coalitions and most decisive act of self-help-organized the trade­ integration and who object to the "black­ union movement and then in alliance with many Ipower" concept have a massive job to do. We middle-class elements went on to improve its own must see to it that the liberal-labor-civil rights lot and the condition of American society general­ coalition is maintained and, indeed, strengthened ly, so the Negro of today is struggling to go beyond so that it can fight effectively for a Freedom the gains of the past and, in alliance with liberals Budget. We are responsible for the growth of the and labor, to guarantee full and fair employment "black-power" concept because we have not used to all Americans. our own power to insure the full implementation Mr. Randolph's Freedom Budget not only rests of the bills whose passage we were strong enough on the Employment Act of 1946, but on a prece­ to win, and we have not mounted the necessary dent set by Harry Truman when he believed campaign for winning a decent minimum wage freedom was threatened in Europe. In 1947, the and extended benefits. " Black power" is a slogan Marshall Plan was put into elfect and 3 per cent of directed primarily against liberals by those who the gross national product was spent in foreign aid. once counted liberals among their closest friends. If we were to allocate a similar proportion of our It is up to the liberal movement to prove that GNP to destroy the economic and social conse- walition and integration arc better alternatives.

Reprinted from COMMENTARY September 1966

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