How Race Wrecked Liberalism

James Nuechterlein:

Within two weeks of passage of the civil-rights legislation of 1964 a major riot broke out in Harlem, followed quickly by outbreaks in other northeastern cities. Just five days after passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 came the conflagration in Watts, one of the deadliest race riots in the nation’s history.

It would be difficult to overestimate the damage that those and subsequent riots did to the cause of civil rights. White guilt dissipated; white outrage flourished. Moderates had assumed that in supporting civil-rights legislation they were both doing the right thing and purchasing social order. When that implicit bargain broke down, they felt betrayed, and they became increasingly dubious about arguments that only further legislation would make possible a break in an endless series of “long, hot summers.”

The reaction to the riots on the Left further unsettled moderate whites. King, not surprisingly, blamed specific outbreaks mostly on official misbehavior—often police brutality—and put increasing emphasis on the economic roots of black protest. He called the Watts riot a “class revolt” of the underprivileged. Many white liberals, while insisting that they did not condone black violence, so emphasized the importance of understanding the frustrations leading to its occurrence that they seemed to be justifying it.

First Things: How Race Wrecked Liberalism

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