Saturday, August 23, 2008

THE NATIONAL REVIEW & "NEGROES"

In 1957, the National Review sided with the racists in the South and by 1965 the magazine still hadn't learned very much. (h/t Jamison Foser) Matthew Yglesias found this gem:
Will Herberg’s commentary on King’s Nobel Peace Prize “’Civil Rights’ and Violence: Who Are the Guilty Ones?”, The National Review Sept. 7th, 1965:

For years now, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and his associates have been deliberately undermining the foundations of internal order in this country. With their rabble-rousing demagoguery, they have been cracking the “cake of custom” that holds us together. With their doctrine of “civil disobedience,” they have been teaching hundreds of thousands of Negroes — particularly the adolescents and the children — that it is perfectly alright to break the law and defy constituted authority if you are a Negro-with-a-grievance; in protest against injustice. And they have done more than talk. They have on occasion after occasion, in almost every part of the country, called out their mobs on the streets, promoted “school strikes,” sit-ins, lie-ins, in explicit violation of the law and in explicit defiance of the public authority. They have taught anarchy and chaos by word and deed — and, no doubt, with the best of intentions — and they have found apt pupils everywhere, with intentions not of the best. Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind.

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