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Opportunity Action Plan 2/27/91 [OA 6855] [3]
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7
FROM: RESEARCH UTILIZATION DIV TO:
2024566218
FEB 20, 1991 12:45PM #535 P.01
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENTAND RESEARCH
Research Utilization Division
TELECOPIER COVER SHEET
DATE: Feb.20,1991
NUMBER OF PAGES (INCLUDING THIS PAGE): 16
TO: Mary Kate Brand FROM: form Humbers
PHONE NUMBER:
AHUD
1708-3896
FAX NUMBER: 456-6218
SUBJECT:
THE PHONE NUMBER FOR THIS FAX MACHINE IS (202) 708-4481
FROM: RESEARCH UTILIZATION DIV
TO:
2024566218
FEB 20, 1991 12:45PM #535 P.02
Remarks by
Secretary Jack Kemp
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
before the
California Republican Party State Convention
Saturday, March 10, 1990
Santa Clara, California
FROM: RESEARCH UTILIZATION DIV
TO:
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FEB 20, 1991 12:45PM #535 P.03
2
What a thrill it is to stand before the great men and women
from my home State of California. I've been privileged to be
back here many times.
I am proud to serve with this President at this
revolutionary moment in history. I believe Abraham Lincoln's
axiom that we serve our Party best by serving our country first.
In 1990, particularly here, we can serve our country best by
electing Pete Wilson the next Governor of California.
I have learned that the greatest speeches in history are the
shortest speeches. Mr. Lincoln's Gettysburg address was five
minutes long. His second inaugural was three and a half minutes
long. Washington's second inaugural was eight minutes long.
John F. Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech was eleven
minutes. William Henry Harrison was sworn in as President of the
United States in 1841 on a cold March day. He spoke three and a
half hours in 6 above zero weather, caught pneumonia and died.
My speech may not be short enough for greatness; but I'll
keep it brief enough for our mutual health.
A few weeks ago a New York Times editorial said, "If a man
from Mars came to the earth today and said take us to your
leader, we, the New York Times, would have to take him to meet
Gorbachev I want to say that if a man from Mars had come to
earth in the 1980s we would have taken him to meet Ronald Reagan
and, if he came today in the '90s, we would have to take him to
meet President George Bush. And by the way, if Jerry Brown ever
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3
comes back to earth, and wants to be taken to California's
leader, we'd have to take him to Sacramento to meet, Governor
Pete Wilson!
I believe we're living in the most exciting time in the
history of this beloved Nation. It's as if its 1776 all over
again, except this time there's one huge difference; today we
have television sets and we can watch Thomas Jefferson speak his
own words, "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men
are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable rights that among these rights are life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness." And what makes this even more
exciting is that you can listen to Jefferson in Chinese, in
Russian, in Polish, in Lithuanian, and you can see and hear it in
the Ukraine and from Bucharest Square and Sofia Square to
Wenceslas Square and downtown Managua Square.
No where in the world are people quoting Marx, Lenin, or Mao
Tse-tung, except maybe in Cuba and North Korea. Today, young
people are quoting Jefferson and Patrick Henry. They're saying
"Give me democracy or give me death." The inalienable rights ****
human rights, civil rights, legal rights, and voting rights --
and the boundless opportunities that are ours by virtue of our
birthright, are now increasingly recognized as the birthright of
men and women all over the globe.
Mr. Lincoln founded our Republican Party on an idea -- the
idea that the great promises of the Declaration of Independence
belonged to all people for all time, not just for some men at one
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4
time in history; the idea that human freedom is an inalienable
God-given right. It was a radical idea in 1776. In Latin, of
course, "radical" means going back to the roots. Our Republican
Party must be radical in our commitment to the idea that all
people have talent, potential, and possibility. We must
guarantee that every child of God has the equality of opportunity
to be what he or she was meant to be.
Mr. Lincoln said before his first inaugural, "I would rather
be assassinated on this spot than give up my beliefs in the
Declaration of Independence." That passion, that belief, was our
Party's moral foundation - and at the same time a very practical
idea for human progress. Indeed, it made our Party the majority
Party.
Up until the 1980s, there had been three great political
realignments in our Nation's history.
The first began when Mr. Jefferson's party, the Democratic-
Republican Party, defeated the Federalists in 1800. By the way,
I like that phrase, "democratic republican," small "d" of course.
It means a fundamental belief in people, a belief in markets, a
belief in human potential. Our Party must be the party that
believes in possibilities, not limits; in people, not elites; in
democracy, not bureaucracy.
The second great political realignment was Mr. Lincoln's
realignment -- the founding of the Republican Party out of the
old Whig Party. Do you know why the Whig Party died? It stood
for nothing. It couldn't decide whether it was for slavery or
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5
against slavery. It collapsed. It had no heart, no soul, no
moral compass. It stood for nothing - no guiding moral or
political principles.
Mr. Lincoln founded our Republican Party on the profound
ideas of freedom and emancipation; and within four years our
Party became the majority party. I am convinced that the reason
he was so successful and the reason that so many listened to him,
was that they knew he believed, people knew he cared. You see
"people don't care how much you know until they know that you
care. "
The third great political realignment took place when Mr.
Roosevelt led the Democratic Party to majority status in 1932.
And today, I believe we are living in the midst of the
fourth great political realignment in America's history. It
began in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was elected president, and is
based on the idea of peace through strength, restoring economic
growth, and entrepreneurial opportunity to our Nation. While
Ronald Reagan may not have been Time's Man of the Decade, his
accomplishments make Man of the Century!
Today, President George Bush is deepening that realignment,
extending it and expanding it. And ladies and gentlemen, we must
advance this economic growth and opportunity into every single
pocket of poverty and despair in the United States of America,
and indeed the whole world.
As the Berlin wall comes down President Bush, has suggested
that other walls need to come down, too, -- the walls of
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prejudice and the walls of poverty and despair and dependency
that keep many poor people from realizing their dreams and
aspirations.
And how can we tell the world that democracy is the
preferable political, economic and social development tool for
them if we can't make it work right here at home, in our own
communities, in the urban and rural pockets of poverty, where the
incentives are the reverse of everything that needs to be done to
create productive human behavior and wealth
As in all great revolutionary times as Dickens writes, it
can be both the best of times and the worst of times. Today,
it's the best of times in terms of the great national recovery of
both our spirit and our economy.
But there's so much more to be done. As de Tocqueville
taught us, the greatness of America is not only in her fertile
fields and boundless prairies, in her ample harbors and great
rivers -- it can't be measured by GNP. The ultimate strength and
genius of America is people -- their talents, their ideas, their
hopes, their ambitions, and most importantly their goodness.
Some call the 80s the decade of greed. I say it's been a
decade of renewal and opportunity. But not for everybody.
That's what I want to speak about for just a moment. Because
candidly, it's the worst of times for people who are without
homes; the worst of times for people who can't afford to buy
their first home; the worst of times for people without jobs who
are living in despair. It's the worst of times for some in
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California, where only 10 percent of the people can afford a
medium-priced home.
What can we, as a Party, do about these problems? The first
thing we can do about it is realize that problems, after all, are
opportunities, and that we can do something positive to combat
poverty, despair, and hopelessness. Secondly, our Party must
return to our roots -- dug deep by Abraham Lincoln and Thomas
Jefferson -- and wage an all-out war on poverty using the tools
of democracy, private property, and free-enterprise. And this
time we have to win the war on poverty. We can't afford to lose.
It helps to know what went wrong and why.
We have learned all too well how to create poverty. First,
create a very steeply graduated income tax system, and then rely
on inflation to push all working men and women up into higher tax
brackets.
Then, if you want to create more poverty, reward welfare and
unemployment more than you reward working and being productive.
If you want to create even more poverty, reward the families
that break up more than you reward the families that stay
together.
If you want to create still more poverty, reward people that
stay in public housing and on welfare rather than those who move
through welfare, out of public housing, and up the ladder of
economic opportunity. Believe or not, when I came to HUD, I
found that families who had stayed the longest in public housing
were getting awards from the agency. Well, we've cancelled those
FROM: RESEARCH UTILIZATION DIV
TO:
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FEB 20, 1991 12:48PM #535 P.09
8
awards!
Allowing rewards for illicit capitalism out on the street to
be greater than the rewards for the entrepreneur who creates
wealth and jobs legally will create more poverty.
And lastly, if you really want to expand poverty, weaken
the link between effort and reward.
So what must we do? First of all realize that our Party has
been given a second chance by history.
There was a great civil rights revolution in this
country in the Fifties and Sixties. It was led by a woman named
Rosa Parks on Cleveland Avenue in downtown Montgomery, Alabama in
December of 1955. It started a flame that has grown and has
inspired people all over this country. It was sparked by Doctor
King, who said he dreamed that one day we would judge all
children not by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character. We weren't there for the first civil rights
movement, but we're here now.
So I want to outline the second great civil rights
revolution in America. This one is about economic opportunity
for all - the dream of owning a home, owning a piece of property,
having a chance to get a good education, living in a drug-free
neighborhood and community, being able to own a stake in the
system. It means each of us having the opportunity to be what
God meant us to be.
There are positive and progressive ways to combat poverty.
We know intuitively and historically that jobs, home ownership,
FROM: RESEARCH UTILIZATION DIV
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9
housing, education, and freedom of enterprise work. To help
eliminate poverty and despair, President Bush has launched a
program called HOPE. HOPE stands for Homeownership and
Opportunity for People Everywhere. I believe it's the most
incentive-oriented, populist, private enterprise approach to
fighting poverty ever offered.
The President has rightly called for a lower capital gains
tax, not to help the rich, but to help the poor who want to
become rich or at least richer. Not to help the people who've
established existing wealth, but to help those who want to create
new wealth.
And then he proposes to eliminate capital gains tax in the
pockets of poverty SO that men and women with entrepreneurial
skills and ideas can create jobs and new wealth. He believes
everyone can contribute to the wealth of our cities and to the
great wealth of our country. In short, President Bush wants to
greenline the inner cities of America. Greenlining our inner
cities will allow venture capital to flow into minority
businesses. Frankly, there are not enough minority business men
and women in America -- less than 500,000 black-owned businesses
in America and not enough hispanic-owned businesses in America.
There are 14.1 million small businesses in America, and we want
minority businessmen and women to have the same opportunity to
realize their dreams that other Americans in the free-enterprise
system have.
We must concern ourselves, in this new war on poverty, with
FROM: RESEARCH UTILIZATION DIV
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FEB 20, 1991 12:49PM #535 P.11
10
the mother on welfare struggling to make it, who faces the
highest marginal income tax in the United States of America,
higher, incidentally, than any man or woman in this room.
Because when she takes a job at McDonald's or McDonnell Douglas
in Southern California, the government both takes away welfare
and taxes her income. We should work to eliminate the tax on the
first several rungs of the ladder, so that the reward for working
is much greater than the reward for not working or being on
welfare.
Basically, the Democratic Party sees itself as an agent of
redistributing America's wealth. They believe that the only way
you can help some is to take it away from others -- that life, or
at least the economy, is a giant zero sum game. But ladies and
gentlemen, that's not the America Dream. We can't allow an
America in which only the fittest survive. Republicans must
bring more chairs to the table, and build a bigger table.
The centerpiece of the President's HOPE package is to help
not only restore low income housing opportunities in America, but
also give more people the chance to own their own home. We must
take public housing in America and give residents the opportunity
to homestead, to manage, and to control their own destinies.
It's a radical idea, but has deep roots in our Party's history.
Mr. Lincoln suggested that we carve out of the wilderness
opportunities for people to own a piece of land, to own their
property, to own a home, no matter how humble. He said, "every
man should have the means and opportunity of benefitting his
FROM: RESEARCH UTILIZATION DIV
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condition
I am in favor of cutting up the wild lands into
...
parcels so that every poor man may have a home." We must now
homestead in urban America by giving public housing residents a
chance to own their own homes a get a stake our democratic
system.
Some have said the only thing to do in public housing is
blow it up. But President Bush and I want to build, not tear
down. We want children raised in an America that exalts their
boundless potential instead of imposing limits. We want people
treated as resources, not as a drain on resources. We want
children in the inner city to have the same opportunity to
realize their dreams as children in the suburbs.
I've been in inner cities ghettoes and barrios of America,
and I've see the talent that is there waiting to be tapped. I've
seen what happens in public housing communities when human
potential is liberated. I've visited Alicia Rodriguez at Estrada
Court in East L.A., and Kimi Gray at Kenilworth-Parkside in
Washington, D.C. I've talked to Loretta Hall and Bertha Gilkey
in St. Louis, with Irene Johnson in Chicago.
And what a thrill it was to be at Garfield High School in
East L.A. yesterday and Jaime Escalante. He cares! Boy does he
care! There's a huge sign on the wall of his classroom that says
"ganas" -- that's Spanish for desire. Escalante teaches that any
student with desire, ambition, aim, i.e. "ganas," can succeed.
This is the possibility and potential that our Party must
celebrate, encourage, and hold out to all Americans, in contrast
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12
to the welfare dependency and despair that liberals offer. We
must not treat poverty as a perpetual condition. It is an
opportunity to defeat and overcome.
Our Party wants to get the private sector back into the
housing market by incentivizing the tax code. The low income
housing tax credit needs to be extended and expanded.
Our Party wants first-time homebuyers to be able to use
their IRA's as down payments on their homes. The President has
asked Congress to allow families to use IRAs without penalty to
purchase that first home.
Our Party wants to eliminate the local and federal barriers
to affordable housing, whether they are exclusive zoning,
development fees, no-growth policies or rent control. Our Party
must be the Party that creates housing opportunity zones to
remove those barriers and help make housing and homeownership
more affordable for every single man and woman in this country.
The Federal Housing Administration is now back in the
business of helping low and moderate income people have a chance
to own a home. It is helping the first-time home buyers, not
building or insuring swimming pools, golf courses, and vacation
sites.
Our friends on the left in Congress want day care credit
only for those who go out to work, but with all due respect, day
care credit and an earned income tax credit should go to all
families, to all women -- those who work and those who stay at
home and take care of their children. We need a pro-family child
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13
care system in America.
Finally, schools and public housing need to be drug-free.
Many influential business men and women have told elementary
school students, "If you study, stay in school and get good
grades, you can go to college." I believe this country is
affluent enough for the public and the private sectors to
guarantee a college education to every boy and girl in America
who stays in school and gets the grades no matter how low their
income level. I know America can do it, and we Republicans must
advance equal opportunity of higher education.
All of these proposals are based on a radical idea: our goal
of strengthening the link between effort and reward, especially
for those in need. The Democratic Party measures compassion in
America by how many people need welfare and food stamps and
government assistance. Let our Party measure the welfare and the
compassion of America by how few people need it because they have
moved from public assistance to economic independence.
As President Bush has said, "while we can have our
disagreements, the unity of our Party does not require
unanimity." We don't have to look alike or say it all the same
way; but we must have a common purpose, a common foundation, a
common goal of recapturing the American Dream for all people
everywhere. Mr. Lincoln laid that foundation. He taught us that
we can only be the majority party if we act on behalf of the
hopes and dreams and aspirations of every single person.
I believe the greatest target of opportunity for our Party
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today is in the inner cities of America among those who might
never have voted GOP, but because of President Bush's leadership
are looking to us as never before. We must go into pockets of
poverty and help unleash that untapped human potential -- that
caged eagle of human talent that is just ready to soar. Let us
be the party that recognizes the wisdom of the Talmudic
philosopher Maimonides, who said that "the noblest charity is to
prevent someone from having to take charity."
In ancient Jerusalem there was a Housing Secretary by the
name of Nehemiah. He rebuilt the city of Jerusalem, he did not
turn his back on it. Our Party today should be builders like
Nehemiah. We must rebuild our cities, rebuild families, build
better education, build housing and opportunity for those in
need. We can rebuild America, but this time with democracy and
free-enterprise, not central planning and dependency.
Yes, we will have our critics just as Nehemiah had Sanballat
and Tobiah and Geshem who ridiculed him; but he never gave up, he
never left the wall, he never quit.
We have such a man in Pete Wilson. We have such a man in
President George Bush. And I believe we're building that city on
a hill that John Winthrop and, yes, President Reagan talked
about. Never has it been more important to this country to
fulfill its promise, because the whole world today is looking to
us for that type of leadership.
The greatest leadership the world has ever known, is to lead
by example -- to do the right thing for the right reason at the
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right time in history. That's why the emerging leaders today
like Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, President Lansbergis, Andre
Sakharov, Natan Sharansky, Violetto Chamarro, and the students in
Tiananmen Square, are not just quoting America's founding fathers
-- they're looking to us for the model on democratic capitalism
and freedom.
Right here in California we have a chance to carry on the
great legacy of President Ronald Reagan and a great California
governor, George Deukmejian. Petc, we wish you Godspeed; you've
got a great team and a great cause. I can't think of a better
way to help America, and show the world the right way, than to
recapture that dream right here in the State of California under
your leadership. God bless you. Thank you very, very much.
##
yet shared in American Dreams Grant/Cawley know are: who they
We will not forget those who have not We
February 20, 1991
8 a.m. A:CIVIL-RT
persopeless
Friendless
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: OPPORTUNITY PACKAGE
FEBRUARY 27, 1991
homeless
PLACE? TIME?
fortosa fearful destitute
+ des perate
The unemp loyed +
((Acknowledgements))
((local intro))
nem ployable
Thones
Looking around the room today, I see so many familiar faces,
who "con't
so many people who have made a difference in the lives of others.
or white
read
And what draws us all together, despite our different interests
a simple
and backgrounds is one common belief we hold dear: the notion
sentence
that America is a land of opportunity. For 200 years, America
has been the home of democracy and free enterprise, the
They necd
birthplace of the American Dream, and mankind's last, best hope.
For we have the finest in the world world's best technology,
that HOPE
1
world's best space program, even "world's best cheesecake"
but truly, we have built the world's best system of providing
X
opportunity ever.
opportunity in America is the every of the world
The opportunities we enjoy today were won by the sweat and
blood of leaders throughout American history -- from our Founding
Fathers who wrote the Bill of Rights; to Abraham Lincoln who
the degradation of
ended a slavery; to the women who led the suffrage movement; to the
notyed
forever
founders of our public schools; to the great men and women of the
civil rights movement. President Thomas Jefferson, a philosopher
fulfill
and educator who dedicated his life to the cause of individual
tiny
liberty, once said that we don't need to invent new ideas, but
rather, to express the American
frontier pioneers
makes mind. SOV'. Who will leade us into
us great Next American Century
what ties them together is
+ leaders.
st)
belief conane m dignity to beat pride, odds. self Concept respect of leardeship = true neros American Then now
What is the
American Dream - if it Bn it,
means: Own own home stake in community
Children better than me nave/me
have family better - educ.
Life of meaning B/Adventure
Than parents
make a difference
Adventure
(Control destiny - -say in own fature)
/
& (Family) part of something create larger
than ourselves - make future
better for our children than rusllves
2
We have heroes today, expressing the American mind.
They
are making history by empowering people -- propelling us into a
new era of equality of opportunity. People like George Waters
and Aaron Bocage, in Camden, New Jersey -- founders of EDTEC, the
Educational Training and Enterprise Center, to give small
business experience to high-school drop-outs. Or Detroit's
Reverend Lee Earl, pastor of the 12th Street Baptist Church, who
organized neighbors to buy up crack houses, hired unemployed
workers for the renovation, and sold the houses to decent, drug-
free families. And people like (more examples from education )
Or right here in Washington, John Raye and his group, the
"Majestic Eagles," known as the "incubator for new
entrepreneurs." Theirs is a movement rooted in the American
Next American
mind. And this movement is not going away. // Century
Sadly not every American has a share in the American Dream.
have lost hoge
There are too many Americans below the poverty line, trapped in
-ord unemployable. can't read a sentence single
welfare. Too many unemployed. Too many functional illiterates.
much
less
Too many who have been shut out of the economic mainstream.
write
one
They are the ones who just need a chance. An opportunity to
gain control of their lives. And with it, comes the hope of
making a better life for themselves. And the best way to get
that hope, that opportunity? It starts with this: education.
No matter what race or creed or color you are, having a
skill gets you a job. The more skills you have, the farther you
go. And the more choices you have before you, the more
opportunities lay ahead for you. The Administration's Education
3
bill puts choice in the hands of students and parents -- so they
can pick the best school for themselves. Moderate and upper
"
They can choose to move, or choose to
income Americans already have choice -- they can transfer to
better schools. But low-income students can't afford it. We've
seen that choice and competition improve education -- from (city),
NY
Minnesota to East Harlem -- it's time low-income Americans become
consumers with a choice in schools.
We're also proposing education reforms to build flexibility
and accountability into our education system. We're encouraging
teachers, parents and administrators to work together to meet the
needs of all students. Every kid in America should arrive at
school ready to learn, and graduate ready to work. //
Research shows that a projected 15 million new jobs will be
awaiting America's graduates over the next 20 years. To fill
those jobs, American business will look increasingly to growing
populations -- blacks and hispanics -- and to people just
entering the economic mainstream -- workers with disabilities and
mothers who have chosen to work outside the home. Those 15
million jobs will need more and more skilled employees. And the
most direct route to employment is straight through education.
Time and time again, I hear from low-income workers already
on the job -- who want to expand their horizons by working toward
a degree, or want to get certified at a night school, or want to
put in extra hours and earn a promotion. But so many don't want
to risk it. It's not a question of self-esteem, or ability, or
even racism. It's fear. They're afraid to stay late at the
4
office and walk home alone after dark -- or leave the house with
no one around. It's a fact: crime hits low-income Americans
disproportionately. They're the ones stuck in the projects,
unable to move to the better sections across town -- unable to
defend themselves from the drug dealers and murderers right next
door. I say it's time to take back the neighborhoods. 11))
Our crime package targets the people who need protection the
poor people in om Inner cities We mean business
most: low income Americans in urban areas. We're going after
gangs and drug kingpins. Imposing mandatory sentences for using
a firearm in a violent crime. Strengthening protections against
sex crimes and child abuse. We
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FEB 21, 1991 3:11PM #543 P.01
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND
Research Utilization Division
RESEARCH: 16
TELECOPIER COVER SHEET
DATE: 2/21/91
NUMBER OF PAGES (INCLUDING THIS PAGE): 9
TO: Mary Kate Thank FROM: Tom Humbers
PHONE NUMBER:
708-3896
FAX NUMBER: 456-6218
SUBJECT:
THE PHONE NUMBER FOR THIS FAX MACHINE IS (202) 708-4481
FROM:RESEARCH UTILIZATION DIV
TO:
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FEB 21, 1991 3:12PM #543 P.02
Biographies of resident leaders
for HUD's 25th Anniversary Celebration
Affordable Housing
Rosa Parrish
Under the leadership of Rosa Parrish, the largest single
homeownership project under HUD's demonstration was completed in
Nashville, Tennessee. On June 26, 1989, the Metropolitan
Development and Housing Agency of Nashville sold three public
housing developments to the New Edition Community Apartments
Cooperative. At the ceremony marking the transfer of property to
the residents, which Secretary Kemp attended, Rosa Parish said,
"Today, I'm a homeowner. I can't tell you the joy and pleasure
I've had from being in my little home." Secretary Kemp has set a
goal of achieving one million new and low-income homeowners by
1992; 275,000 have been achieved to date.
Resident Management and Urban Homesteading
Mildred Hailey
Universally recognized as the matriarch of resident
management, Mildred Hailey is president of the Nation's oldest
resident management corporation in Boston's Bromley-Heath public
housing community. Bromley-Heath had earned the nickname
"Concrete Jungle" because of the high incidence of crime and
drug-dealing during the early 1970s. Through the effort of
Mildred Hailey and others, the resident managers established a
volunteer community patrol and, according to police statistics,
during the patrol's first-year of operation burglaries dropped 77
percent. Secretary Kemp appointed Mildred Hailey to serve on the
National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing.
Drug-free public housing
Ramona Younger
The resident council in Alexandria, Virginia's public
housing is guided by Ramona Younger, an iron-willed young lady
who rallied her fellow residents to rid their community of drugs
and move toward resident management. Ramona Younger organized
all-night vigils to peacefully combat the drug-dealers who had
invaded her community. In January 1990 President Bush and
Secretary Kemp joined her in a visit to the site of the vigils,
marking the first time a U.S. President has ever visited public
housing. The resident council is pursuing dual management with
the housing authority, moving eventually toward homeownership.
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When Tenants Take Charge
coin-op laundry and a young tenant
trained to repair breakdowns. Johnson's
group is also developing a project to send
tenants out to the burgeoning suburban job
market. "Now instead of 'Get out of my
Kemp's housing plan works-but only up to a point
face,' I'm seeing a change in people's faces,"
Johnson says.
Critics say such accounts are inspiring
but misleading. While no one objects
to the empowerment of public-housing
dwellers, they say tenant management
and home ownership are no answers to
the severe shortage of low-income hous-
ing. Reagan-era cuts, gentrification and
soaring demand (an estimated 900,000
families on waiting lists for the 1.4 mil-
lion occupied units of public housing)
have pushed the situation to a crisis.
Some housing advocates say Kemp's plan
smacks of abandonment "What it really
represents is us throwing up our hands
nihilistically and saying to poor people,
'Here, this is unmanageable. You take it
over'," says Jim Fuerst, professor of social-
welfare policy at Loyola University and a
former CHA administrator.
Physical decay: Some pockets of success,
like the much-touted Kenilworth-Parkside
development in Washington, D.C., have
benefited from personal attention of offi-
cials like Kemp and may be difficult to
duplicate on a mass scale. Many public
housing projects are simply too far gone-
RICK FRIEDMAN-BLACK STAR
Tearing down walls: At the Bromley-Heath public-housing development in Boston
awash in drugs, gangs and physical de-
cay-for tenant managers to do much
good. Despite Bromiey-Heath's 16-year
A
contender for the Republican pres-
ment council wasn't an option, it was an
success, no other Boston housing projects
idential nomination last year, Jack
imperative. "Our becoming involved was
have been converted to resident control
Kemp preached Reaganism with a
for survival," says Hailey. It took her three
(although officials are currently attempt-
heart. With low taxes and other policies to
years to convince other residents that they
ing to organize & second development).
stimulate private enterprise, he argued,
could do a better job running Bromley-
While Kemp views tenant management as
conservatives could achieve portions of the
Heath than the housing authority. By 1973
a precursor to private ownership, some say
liberal social agenda. As George Bush's sec-
they had assumed all operations at the
that is an even more distant prospect for a
retary of Housing and Urban Develop-
project except the selection of tenants. To-
population barely subsisting in tenancy.
ment, Kemp now has a chance to see if his
day Bromley-Heath still has problems with
"This romantic notion of homeownership
caring conservatism will work. His first
crime and drug use. But there is also a day.
is a cruel hoax on the poor," says Bob Mc-
major initiative, unveiled by Bush earlier
care center, job training, a private security
Kay, executive director of the Council of
this month, is a S4.2 billion package of
force and free medical care donated by local
Large Public Housing Authorities. Mil-
housing programs held together by an un-
hospitals.
dred Hailey says the tenant council at
usual-and some experts say dubious-
Other successes follow the Bromley-
Bromley-Heath hasn't even considered the
linchpin: tenant management and eventu-
Heath model: small groups with a will to
possibility, nor does she even regard it as a
al ownership of public and low-income
change both the system and the attitude of
legitimate goal. Her priority: "To get every
housing. Instituted by the Thatcher gov-
their neighbors. In 1983 Irene Johnson and
unit rehabilitated and occupied."
ernment in Britain, the ideas have been put
a tenant group at the LeClaire Courts proj-
Despite the widespread misgivings,
into practice here only in isolated cases.
ect in southwest Chicago began winning
Kemp is pushing ahead. As many as 60
But the results suggest that tenant manag-
private grants to enroll in management-
tenant management groups are in training
ers can help improve housing projects that
training classes. Last spring the Chicago
across the country. An ambitious politician
officials have written off.
Housing Authority (CHA) gave Johnson's
who covets a shot at the White House in
The longest-running success story is in
group full responsibility for LeClaire's
1996, Kemp is staking a good chunk of his
Boston. Bromley-Heath was all but forgot-
$1.5 million annual budget. But winning
political future on the concept's success. "It
ten by the Boston Housing Authority in
over the CHA was only part of the struggle.
will tear down the walls that come between
the late 1960s. Its 37 low-rise buildings,
Most of the 3,500 tenants in LeClaire's dis-
people and their self-respect." he told TO
sprawled across the city's crime- and drug-
mal brick-and-wood low-rises were cynical
porters. But Kemp may find those walls a
ridden Jamaica Plain section, had 4,000
about the changeover. "When we told them
little higher and more impenetrable than
broken windows, two broken boilers and
we were going to get them a new Laundro-
he once thought.
leaky roofs everywhere. Mildred Hailey.
mat. they looked at me and said. 'Get out of
who has lived in the development for 35
my face"." Johnson says. But soon the ten-
BILL TURQUE with TiM PADGETT in Chicago.
TODD BARRETT in Boston and
years, says organizing a tenant manage-
ant group had a private funding for a new
CLARA BINCHAMIN Washington
44 NEWSWEEK NOVEMBER 27. 1989
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Sun-Sentinel
Sunday, April 15, 1990
$1
SEEDS FOR SUCCESS
Small-business program offers
residents big opportunities.
and major-appliance repair service
By AVIDO D KHAHAIFA
from an office west of Fort Lauderdale
SIDE White
Stugges recenth won a rontract 10 in-
Brenda Stuggle minds her own busi-
stall all of the all conditioning in 1 64-
ness and It it profitable
unit apartment complex being built in
In the past year. the 31-year-old for.
Danie
mer bank teller earned enough running
Two graduates of the second set of
net own repair business to move out of
workshops - , 10.week session that
public housing and but her own house in
ended ID June - are 10 open businesses
Fort Lauderdale
soon
: have to constantly pinch myself."
who IFCIS Mann 38 atreads has be.
STURRIS L.I. 1 can 1 believe sometimes
gun providing bathroom concession ser-
Bow much I ve accomplished in a year 1
vices 10 hightclubs
find myself in the last couple of months
He has an office on Sistrunk Boule-
being able to pay my bills
vard in Fort Lauderdale and expects to
Stugges 1% a 1988 graduate of the fed-
have his restroom concessions and re-
eral Small Business Opportunities Pro-
Lall tolleiries business - Bazcozelli
gram which teaches residents of public
Bathroom Boutiques - th full operation
housing how 10 state à business and pro.
by the end of April
vides grants of $2.500 LO $10.000 for
Karen Akinbiyi 23 the other gradu-
them to do so
ate. 15 waiting for the licenses abe needs
Since the Broward program began in
to begin operating her Hot Diggity Dog
not dog cart a: several locations in
Program graduate Verdis Mann works in Fort Lauderdale office. where
1987. 31 people have completed the
training Seven have received a total of
Broward County
he is setting up his restroom concessions and retail toiletries business.
about $26.000 in start-up capital. said
Akinbiyi. who lives at Eblinger
Kevin Cregan. deputy director of the
Apartments in Davie said that without
community development groups The
graduates who establish a business
Broward County Housing Authority.
the financing she received through the
program is one of only four ID the coun-
must agree to jet the consition keep
Only one of the seven businesses has
program the could not have gobt into
try: the others are in Dade County.
track of the business's finances for
Cleveland and New Haven. Conn
three years: give half of any of the jobs
failed - a night child-care center in
business
in Broward the first two sessions
generated by the business to residents
/Hollywood Cregan said
"I always wanted to start $ business.
Stuggis is one of four people who es-
but it's very difficult for the bank or any
were paid for through federal. county
of public housing: and make a donation
lending institution to lend you money
and non-profit organization grants The
- no specific amount 15 supulated - to
tablished a thriving business after tak.
IDE the first 15.week workshop in 1987
because they want to set à business his.
conlition 18 trying to finance the next
the program once the business becomes
Stugges has an air-conditioning re-
tory. Akinbiyi said.
sessions through private donations
successful
pair license and a contractor's license.
The program 15 operated by the Hous-
Housing authority officials consider
"The SBOP is more than just getting
stuch enable her to operate Sonbre Apr
ing Authority through # coalition of
the program a success
plances Inc a 24-hour air conditioning
In return for the training and money.
SEE PROGRAM 10D
businesses. corporations and non-profit
FROM PAGE 10
financial strain 1 would have en-
countered if 1 had done It part
Start-up program
time." Stugges said.
Much the same was this for
helps residents
Akinbiyi She and her husband
Abraham. wanted 10 open a coin-
set up business
operated laundry, but that was 100
expensive.
people in public bousing
She settled on the hot dog cart as
and giving them money to start a
business. Matin said. "We agree
a quick moneymaker. The pro-
to be guided by them hand and foot
gram provided Akinbiy: with the
if you will."
money to buy the cart. and she
As intended. it has given people
plans to use the bot dog business as
who are perfectly capable of oper.
a springboard 80 something
ating their own businesses and be
bigger.
Just as Stoggis did. Akinblyi,
ing financially independent the op-
portunity to do so.
hopes to get out of Ehlinger Apart-
Students and Akisbiyi had long
ments within a year of starting the
planned OD starting their OWD
business.
butinesses.
And that's the key to the pro-
Stuggs said she always loved to
gram. officials said.
tinker with mechanical things. She
If it works, people can escape
already was enrolled in Advanced
public housing.
Technical Academy in Danis and
"Self-employment doesn't have
planned to tis appliances part
anything to do with residential to
time when she entered the Small
cation. Stuggis said "Tibe Dro-
Basiness Opportunity Program
gram] could make a drastic differ-
like setablished Soubre Appli-
case in the direction of people
areas Inc. nearly two years ARE.
living 10 the public bousing
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TALKING POINTS FOR SECRETARY KRMP
AT NICKERSON GARDENS RIBBON-CUTTING CEREMONY
Tuesday, September 4, 1990, 12:00 p.m.
"I'M DELIGHTED TO JOIN NORA KING, PRESIDENT OF THE NICKERSON
GARDENS TENANT COUNCIL
...
CLAUDIA MOORE, THE HOUSING
AUTHORITY TENANT COMMISSIONER
...
MY GOOD FRIEND
ASSEMBLYWOMAN MAXINE WATERS
...
AND OTHERS IN THIS JOYOUS
OCCASION MARKING THE COMMENCEMENT OF TENANT MANAGEMENT
TRAINING (THROUGH A HUD TRAINING GRANT ANNOUNCED EARLIER
THIS YEAR) "
"BERTHA GILKEY, WOMAN, I'M PROUD OF THE FACT THAT LIKE
SOJOURNER TRUTH, YOU HAVE CARRIED THE WISDOM AND TRUTH OF
EMPOWERMENT FROM COCHRAN GARDENS IN ST. LOUIS TO LOS
ANGELES, WHERE WE CELEBRATE THE KICK-OFF OF YOUR TRAINING
EFFORT AT NICKERSON GARDENS. YOU AND NORA AND CLAUDIA AND
MY GOOD FRIEND ALICIA RODRIGUEZ FROM ESTRADA COURTS HAVE
LAUNCHED WHAT I BELIEVE WILL BE RECORDED AS "CHAPTER TWO" OF
THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, A MOVEMENT FOR JOBS, DIGNITY, AND
JUSTICE IN OUR NATION'S BARRIOS AND PUBLIC HOUSING
COMMUNITIES."
"TO CARL COVITZ, THE PHA BOARD CHAIRMAN, AND JOE SHULDINER,
THE NEW PHA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LET ME SAY HOW PROUD I AM OF
THE PARTNERSHIP YOU HAVE BUILT WITH THE RESIDENTS OF PUBLIC
HOUSING THROUGHOUT LOS ANGELES, FROM WATTS TO EAST L.A.
THERE IS A NEW RENAISSANCE OCCURRING IN PUBLIC HOUSING
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2
COMMUNITIES ACROSS THIS NATION."
"LAST YEAR I HAD THE GOOD FORTUNE OF VISITING WITH ALICIA
RODRIGUEZ AND THE RESIDENTS OF ESTRADA COURTS IN EAST L.A.
IT'S AN HONOR TO BE HERE WITH YOU AGAIN, ALICIA, IN
CELEBRATING THE FORMATION OF RESIDENT MANAGEMENT ENTITIES
THROUGHOUT L.A. THIS FRIDAY, ESTRADA COURTS, WITH BERTHA
GILKEY'S HELP, WILL LAUNCH ITS OWN TRAINING PROGRAM."
"HUD HAS AWARDED FIVE TENANT MANAGEMENT TRAINING GRANTS TO
DATE TO RESIDENT GROUPS IN THE L.A. AREA. THESE FIVE ARE
PART OF A GROWING MOVEMENT OF ONE HUNDRED GROUPS IN TRAINING
ACROSS THE COUNTRY."
"CONGRESSMAN GUS HAWKINS, I WAS PROUD TO TEAM UP WITH YOU
AND D.C. DELEGATE WALTER FAUNTROY IN 1987, WHEN WE PASSED
THE KEMP-FAUNTROY TENANT MANAGEMENT AMENDMENTS THAT MADE
THIS GREAT EVENT POSSIBLE. IT'S MY HIGHEST THRILL TO NOW
PRESIDE OVER IMPLEMENTATION OF THIS PROGRAM AT HUD, WHERE I
HAVE CREATED A NEW OFFICE OF RESIDENT INITIATIVES TO WORK
FULL-TIME ON BEHALF OF THIS CAUSE."
"I HAVE JUST APPOINTED A NEW FULL-TIME RESIDENT INITIATIVE
COORDINATOR, RICK CURRY, WHO IS GOING TO HELP YOU ORGANIZE
THIS NEW INITIATIVE, BACKED BY THE LEADERSHIP OF MY REGIONAL
ADMINISTRATOR BOB DeMONTE AND MY L.A. FIELD OFFICE MANAGER
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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENTAN RESEARCH
Research Utilization Division
TELECOPIER COVER SHEET
DATE: 2/21/91
NUMBER OF PAGES (INCLUDING THIS PAGE): 9
TO: Mary Kate Granh
FROM: Tom Humbers
PHONE NUMBER:
708-3896
FAX NUMBER: 456-6218
SUBJECT:
THE PHONE NUMBER FOR THIS FAX MACHINE IS (202) 708-4481
FROM:RESEARCH UTILIZATION DIV
TO:
2024566218
FEB 21, 1991 3:27PM #544 P.02
2
COMMUNITIES ACROSS THIS NATION."
"LAST YEAR I HAD THE GOOD FORTUNE OF VISITING WITH ALICIA
RODRIGUEZ AND THE RESIDENTS OF ESTRADA COURTS IN EAST L.A.
IT'S AN HONOR TO BE HERE WITH YOU AGAIN, ALICIA, IN
CELEBRATING THE FORMATION OF RESIDENT MANAGEMENT ENTITIES
THROUGHOUT L.A. THIS FRIDAY, ESTRADA COURTS, WITH BERTHA
GILKEY'S HELP, WILL LAUNCH ITS OWN TRAINING PROGRAM."
"HUD HAS AWARDED FIVE TENANT MANAGEMENT TRAINING GRANTS TO
DATE TO RESIDENT GROUPS IN THE L.A. AREA. THESE FIVE ARE
PART OF A GROWING MOVEMENT OF ONE HUNDRED GROUPS IN TRAINING
ACROSS THE COUNTRY."
"CONGRESSMAN GUS HAWKINS, I WAS PROUD TO TEAM UP WITH YOU
AND D.C. DELEGATE WALTER FAUNTROY IN 1987, WHEN WE PASSED
THE KEMP-FAUNTROY TENANT MANAGEMENT AMENDMENTS THAT MADE
THIS GREAT EVENT POSSIBLE. IT'S MY HIGHEST THRILL TO NOW
PRESIDE OVER IMPLEMENTATION OF THIS PROGRAM AT HUD, WHERE I
HAVE CREATED A NEW OFFICE OF RESIDENT INITIATIVES TO WORK
FULL-TIME ON BEHALF OF THIS CAUSE."
"I HAVE JUST APPOINTED A NEW FULL-TIME RESIDENT INITIATIVE
COORDINATOR, RICK CURRY, WHO IS GOING TO HELP YOU ORGANIZE
THIS NEW INITIATIVE, BACKED BY THE LEADERSHIP OF MY REGIONAL
ADMINISTRATOR BOB DeMONTE AND MY L.A. FIELD OFFICE MANAGER
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3
CHARLES MING.
"IN APRIL OF THIS YEAR, I ANNOUNCED A TARGET OF ESTABLISHING
250 RESIDENT MANAGEMENT ENTITIES BY 1992, AND THE GOAL OF
ESTABLISHING ONE MILLION NEW HOMEOWNERS THROUGH URBAN
HOMESTEADING AND FHA PROGRAMS.'
"THE PRESIDENT'S HOPE PROGRAM, WHICH HAS BEEN APPROVED IN
THE HOUSE AND IN THE SENATE, NOW GOES BEFORE THE HOUSE-
SENATE CONFERENCE FOR FINAL ACTION THIS MONTH. I AM ASKING
THE SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE TO FULLY FUND THE $2
BILLION URBAN HOMESTEADING AND RESIDENT MANAGEMENT GRANTS
PROGRAM IN HOPE."
"TO MAYOR TOM BRADLEY AND THE DISTINGUISHED MEMBERS OF THE
L.A. BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT THE
HOPE PACKAGE MUST SUCCEED IN THIS CITY AS MUCH AS ANYWHERE
ELSE IN AMERICA. I AM CONVINCED THAT LOS ANGELES IS THE
GREATEST GROWING "OPPORTUNITY ZONE" FOR HUD'S INITIATIVES.
MATCHED WITH ENTERPRISE ZONE LEGISLATION AND COMMUNITY
REINVESTMENT INITIATIVES, THIS PROGRAM WILL FINALLY PUT A
"GREENLINE" AROUND PUBLIC HOUSING COMMUNITIES ACROSS AMERICA
TO ATTRACT NEW INVESTMENT FOR JOB CREATION."
"TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER THIS COMMUNITY WAS TORN BY CIVIL
STRIFE, WATTS IS EXPERIENCING A REBIRTH RIGHT HERE IN PUBLIC
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HOUSING.
"
"NORA (KING), I WAS PLEASED TO SEE THE TOT LOTS YOU HAVE
BUILT ON "SUCCESS AVENUE" ON MY DRIVE INTO THIS SITE TODAY.
THIS EFFORT WAS A MODEL VENTURE WHERE HUD CIAP MODERNIZATION
FUNDS WERE COMBINED WITH HELP FROM ARCO IN THE PRIVATE
SECTOR, AND THE CITY PARKS AND RECREATION DEPARTMENT."
"LET THIS NEW "SUCCESS AVENUE" ENTERPRISE, ALONG WITH THE
COMMENCEMENT OF TENANT MANAGEMENT HERE TODAY, REPRESENT THE
CREATION OF A FIELD OF DREAMS FOR THE YOUTH IN THIS AREA,
WHERE ONLY A SHORT TIME AGO LAY THE KILLING FIELDS OF RIVAL
GANGS. "
"I HAVE NO DOUBT THAT THE REVITALIZATION OF WATTS WILL BEGIN
FROM THE MINDS AND HEARTS AND CREATIVE ENTERPRISES OF
RESIDENTS, THEMSELVES, WHO HAVE LAUNCHED THIS GREAT MOVEMENT
FROM WATTS TO EAST LA, TO CHI-TOWN, LIBERTY CITY, AND
SCORES OF OTHER COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE U.S."
"THANK YOU, AND GOD BLESS YOU."
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
May 17, 1990
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
DURING MEETING WITH
COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS
The Rose Garden
10:02 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Welcome to the Rose Garden and to the
White House. Thank you all very much for coming. To the Attorney
General and Secretary Cavazos and Secretary Sullivan, thank you for
joining us. Director Newman, the same. And to Senators Dole, Hatch,
and Garn, Congressman Ham Fish, thank you very much for being with us
today. To Chairman Fletcher, an old friend and a man I'm very proud
of, welcome, sir. To Commissioners Buckley, Ramirez, Redenbaugh,
Wilfredo Gonzalez and the State Advisory Committee Chairpersons, and
to the distinguished leaders. I see Ben Hooks here and others of the
civil rights community across this great country. It is -- and I
mean it -- an honor to have you here today.
I think we've made it a moment that's very hopeful
worldwide. In a minute from now, I'll be meeting in this marvelous
Oval Office with Chancellor Kohl, talking about the dramatic changes
that have taken place in the world. There is a time when the
thundering cry for freedom is being heard and answered from Panama,
hopefully in Johannesburg, to Warsaw.
And around the world, peoples are warring against
tyranny, citizens struggling against state control, economies weary
of bureaucratic central planners, all are looking to America as
reason for hope -- the bright star by which to chart their course to
freedom.
And so it's all the more crucial now that we look
carefully to the kind of country we are -- to the state of democracy
here in the Land of Liberty. And we're called upon to ensure that
this democracy means opportunity for all who call it home.
Few have worked harder to deliver the promise of
democracy, to make an enduring dream a living reality, than the men
and women assembled here today in this Rose Garden. And
particularly, I want to give credit again to these men and women
standing behind me.
From its earliest origins, the Commission on Civil Rights
has been an independent, bipartisan voice for justice. And the
Commissioners, the Directors, the Advisory Committees all share a
cultural diversity and an intellectual and moral conviction that are
truly America's best. And these men and women have earned our
admiration. And today, they deserve our thanks.
Joining a new Chairman -- and as I said, my friend of
many years, Art Fletcher -- are two outstanding additions: Carl
Anderson and Russell Redenbaugh. I know Bob Dole shares my
admiration for Russell, a man of impressive credentials, who knows,
as all Americans should know, that physical disability will not be a
barrier to service in this administration. That's why I remain
firmly committed to the landmark Americans for Disabilities Act to
help ensure equal rights and opportunities for these Americans.
And today, I'd like to announce a new member of the Civil
Rights Commission, Mr. Charles Pei Wang, President of the China
Institute in America, an outstanding new addition.
Over the last few days, I've met to discuss pending civil
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rights legislation with leaders representing America's rich tapestry
of cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity. And I got, as I knew I
would, a lot of sound advice. Much of which I can accept.
(Laughter.) But these leaders, this Commission -- (applause) -- the
Congress and this administration, believe me, all share a common
conviction for equal opportunity. It's a responsibility that I've
tried to take very seriously -- especially now, when our most vital
export to the world is democracy.
And we must make sure that we as a nation continue to
lead by example. We must see that true affirmative action is not
reduced to some empty slogan, and that this principle of striking
down all barriers to advancement has real, living meaning to all
Americans. We will leave nothing to chance and no stone unturned as
we work to advance America's civil rights agenda. (Applause.)
This nation's progress against prejudice, from the '64
Act to the Voting Rights Act, to the Fair Housing and Age
Discrimination in Employment Acts, it's all hinged on the principle
that no one in this country should be excluded from opportunity. And
so, we're committed to enacting new measures like the Hate Crimes
Statistics Act, the HOPE initiative of housing, a revitalized
enforcement of restrictions against employment bias. This
administration seeks equal opportunity and equal protection under the
law for all Americans -- goals that I know are shared by Senators
Kennedy and Representative Hawkins, and certainly by the four
distinguished members of Congress with us here today.
And so we've supported efforts to ensure an individual's
ability to challenge discriminatory seniority systems. We've also
moved to stiffen the penalties from racial discrimination in setting
or applying the terms and conditions of employment. And today, as we
work to ensure that America represents democracy's highest
expression, I want to begin by offering three principles that must
guide any amendments to our civil rights laws. These principles are
firmly rooted in the spirit of our current laws. After the extensive
discussions that we've had this week, I think they principles on
which all of us, including the leadership on the Hill, can agree.
And so I will enthusiastically support legislation that meets these
principles.
First, civil rights legislation must operate to
obliterate consideration of factors such as race, color, religion,
sex, or national origin from employment decisions. (Applause.) So
in essence, we seek civil rights legislation that is more effective,
not less. The focus of employers in this country must be on
providing equal opportunity for all workers, not on developing
strategies to avoid litigation. (Applause.)
No one here today would want me to sign a bill whose
unintended consequences are quotas. Because quotas are wrong, and
they violate the most basic principles of our civil rights tradition
and the most basic principles of the promise of democracy. America's
minority communities deserve more than symptomatic relief, and we
want to eradicate the disease. And that will require systematic
solutions, strategies that transcend statistics.
We should empower and ennoble our minority communities.
We should seek systematic change that allows every American to excel.
During these meetings this week, I invited the civil rights
leadership to work with me to craft a bill that moves us towards this
goal. After these consultations, I am confident that this can be
done. I want to sign a civil rights bill, but I will not sign a
quota bill. (Applause.) I think we can work it out. (Applause.)
The second civil rights legislation must reflect
fundamental principles of fairness that apply throughout our legal
system. Individuals who believe their rights have been violated are
entitled to their day in court, and an accused is innocent until
proved guilty. In every case involving a civil rights dispute,
constitutional protections of due process must be preserved.
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And third, federal law should provide an adequate
deterrent against harassment in the workplace based on race, sex,
religion, or disability, and should ensure a speedy end to such
discriminatory practices. Our civil rights laws, however, should not
be turned into some lawyer's bonanza, encouraging litigation at the
expense of conciliation, mediation, or settlement.
Let me add that Congress, with respect, should live by
the same requirements it prescribes for others. (Applause.) In '72,
the Civil Rights Act of '64 was justly applied to executive agencies
in state, local governments and Congress, however, has not covered.
And this -- this is not an assault on Congress, I'm just trying to --
I've got about -- (laughter) -- but seriously, this inconsistency
should be remedied to give congressional employees and applicants the
full protection of the law to send a strong signal that it's both the
Executive Branch and Congress that are in this together. And the
Congress should join the Executive Branch in setting an example for
these private employers.
Now, we seek strategies that work, putting power where it
belongs -- in the hands of the people. That means new ideas, like
giving poor parents the power of an alternative choice in where to
send the kids to school so that all can have access to the best. It
means more tenant control and ownership of public housing. Tax
credits for child care to give parents more flexibility and choice.
Policies that underwrite prosperity by encouraging capital flow to
build more businesses in poor neighborhoods. The door is open wider
now than it ever has been. Together, I believe we can open it still
wider.
Today, an expanding economy is working in the service of
civil rights. And so, let's not set the clock back. Let's look past
the differences that divide us, to the shared principles and the
better natures that we have within us. To the civil rights
leadership assembled here today -- Dorothy, excuse me, I didn't see
you earlier -- and so many -- I'm in real trouble if I single them
out here. Look, I have offered you my hand and my word that,
together, we can and will make America open and equal to all. Now,
this administration is committed to action that is truly affirmative,
positive action in every sense, to strike down all barriers to
advancement of every kind for all people. We will tolerate no
barriers, no bias, no inside tracks, no two-tiered system, and no
rungless ladders. And I'm willing to take the time to make sure that
this is done right, simply because it's worth doing right. Now is
the time, really, to extend a hand to all that are struggling, and to
devote our energies to a broader agenda of empowerment, that all
might join in this new age of freedom.
I am delighted that you all came here. Thank you for
bringing honor to this prestigious Rose Garden, and to paying tribute
to our Commission here in which I have great confidence, and in which
I take great pride.
Thank you all very, very much. (Applause.) Thank you.
END
10:16 A.M. EDT
10 January 1991
MEMORANDUM FOR MARK LANGE
Mkg
FROM:
JENNIFER GROSSMAN
SUBJECT:
CIVIL RIGHTS/EMPOWERMENT
I.
ANECDOTES
A.
EGO BROWN (excerpts from Clint Bolick's Unfinished Business)
"Ego Brown never fancied himself a crusader, and surely he
never pictured himself at the forefront of a burgeoning
debate over the future direction of civil rights in America.
But he is both.
On top of that, he's a darned good shoeshine artist.
Ego Brown had the courage and determination to make a
federal case about shoeshining, or more specifically, about
the enforcement of an 84-year-old law that prevented him
from shining shoes on the streets of the nation's capital.
His lawsuit against Mayor Marion Barry and the District of
Columbia government was the opening salvo in the battle to
make 'economic liberty' the civil rights issue of the
1990s. "
"As a youngster, Brown shined shoes for pocket money. But
then he noticed it was nearly impossible to find a
convenient shoeshine in the District.
Brown quit his government job and started shining shoes
at a barber shop near Howard University. Before long, he
had perfected his technique and was ready to 'spread the
shine.' Clad in his trademark tuxedo, Brown used his
flamboyant personality to lure customers to his outdoor
stand. His long-range goal was to one day operate stands on
street corners throughout the city and beyond."
EGO EMPOWERS OTHERS WHILE EMPOWERING SELF: "Business went
so well that Brown soon opened additional stands. ****He
staffed them with enterprising homeless individuals, to who
Brown provided a second chance at life in the form of a
daily shower, a set of clothes, and training in the Ego
shoeshine method. 'I used to see these people begging for
money, and I'd dig into my pockets to help them,' he told
me. 'But one day, I realized I could help them more by
giving them an opportunity, a chance to lift themselves by
their own bootstraps. *******
"But Ego Brown's dream soon disintegrated into a nightmare.
The police shut down his stands, citing a 1905 law that
forbade shoeshine stands on public streets. That law was
one of many passed during the Jim Crow era to prevent blacks
from attaining economic self-sufficiency through their own
businesses. Despite the law's sordid origins, and despite
the abundance of other vendors on the District's streets
selling everything from hot dogs to photo opportunities with
cardboard Ronald Reagans, the government chose to enforce
the law and thereby destroy Ego Brown's enterprise."
"
no one from the civil rights establishment rose to
Brown's defense
An NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer
dismissed the lawsuit as a relic of the 19th century. An
activist lawyer from the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission declared that shining shoes was not a dignified
job, that Ego Brown would have more dignity on welfare."
B.
MARK ANTHONY NEVELS
"
in Kansas City, the parents of Mark Anthony Nevels, a
black youngster coming of school age, were preparing to
enroll him in kindergarten. Fortunately for the Nevels
family, the Weeks Elementary School just across the street
had recently been converted to a high-quality 'magnet'
school, and there was plenty of space.
Plenty of space, that is, except for blacks.
Under the terms of a court-imposed desegregation order,
the new magnet schools in Kansas City were required to
conform to a rigid racial quota, allowing admission to three
black students for every two whites who chose to attend. If
whites elected not to attend, blacks were refused
admission."
"In the case of Weeks Elementary School, there was room for
22 kindergarten students. But only four white children
enrolled, and thus only six black children could be
admitted. As a result, 12 seats were held empty, despite a
waiting list of 86 black youngsters including little Mark
Anthony Nevels. Mark would be bused past his neighborhood
school to an inferior school, solely on account of his skin
color."
"The magnet school's racial quota initially was vigorously
defended by the establishment's civil rights lawyer
representing the plaintiff class in the desegregation
case
Eventually, he altered his view
after months of
intense criticism from black community groups."
"This
spectacle is especially remarkable considering that
the entire desegregation era commenced 35 years ago in Brown
V. Board of Education with the Supreme Court striking down a
policy that bused black students past their neighborhood
schools solely because of skin color. Have we traveled so
far only to end up in precisely the place we started?"
C.
ALFRED SANTOS
"Alfredo Santos is a born-again capitalist
[during a visit
to Mexico City] Santos discovered the pesero--small vans
carrying passengers along fixed routes for a flat fee. The
service was popular efficient, and, by all appearances,
profitable."
"Santos, then a taxicab driver, decided to import the idea
to Houston, calling the pesero by its American name--
'jitney.' Using his taxicab during off-duty hours, Santos
inaugurated a jitney route in a poor, predominantly Hispanic
neighborhood in which public bus service was inadequate and
many people couldn't afford cars. Santos offered his
service for a flat fee of one dollar, with pickup and
discharge of passengers anywhere along the five-mile route.' =
"Advertising his service with Spanish-language flyers,
Santos quickly developed a booming business, and other off-
duty cab drivers soon followed his lead. The jitney was
cheaper than a taxicab and much more convenient than a bus,
and passengers were delighted to have a transportation
option.'
"Everyone seemed to benefit. But that didn't deter the
city's cab inspectors, who threatened to fine Santos for
violation the Houston Anti-Jitney Law of 1924. It seems
that in the early 1920s, the streetcar industry mounted a
highly successful nationwide campaign to eradicate the
jitneys, their main source of competition. Sixty-five years
later, the streetcar industry was long-since defunct, but
the laws remained. And so Santos had to shut down his
thriving business."
"Santos tried unsuccessfully to have the law overturned
through the legislative process. When those attempts
failed, he turned to the courts, but it remains to be seen
whether the judiciary will come to the aid of this man who
exemplifies the American entrepreneurial spirit."
D.
DEMOND CRAWFORD
"Demond Crawford, like many youngsters throughout America,
was having trouble in school. His mother, Mary Amaya, was
concerned; she decided to have her son tested.'
"Mrs. Amaya contacted the local public school district,
which sent her a list of available tests, including the I.Q.
test. But written across the bottom page were words that
shocked Mrs. Amaya: your son may not take the I.Q. test
because he is black. "
"Outraged, Mrs. Amaya contacted the NAACP for help in
challenging this pernicious racial classification. But the
NAACP officials not only refused to help Mrs. Amaya, they
told her they were responsible for the adoption of the
racial policy."
"The school district offered a solution: since Demond is
half black and half Hispanic, Mrs. Amaya could reclassify
him from black to Hispanic, and he could take the test.
Mrs. Amaya refused. She would not play games with her son's
heritage to satisfy some social engineering bureaucrat."
"In her lawsuit against the state, Mrs. Amaya takes no
position on whether I.Q. tests are good or bad, or whether
or not they discriminate against blacks; nor does she
contend that the state has an obligation to provide I.Q.
tests to anyone. She argues merely that if the state
provides I.Q. tests, it must make them available without
regard to race. A fairly modest argument, much like the
ones civil rights groups used to make with some frequency."
"The Crawford case illustrates why equality under the law is
so important to individual empowerment--and how far we have
strayed from that objective."
II. OLDIES BUT GOODIES
A.
POLLY WILLIAMS
"
a state assemblywoman from a black district in Milwaukee
was school choice's most potent champion in 1990 Fed up
with inadequate funding and an entrenched school
bureaucracy, state Rep. Annette Polly Williams sponsored a
first-of-its-kind voucher plan that sent 400 poor children
to private schools with state money."
"
the 53-year-old Williams has sided with Bush in arguing
that competition is exactly the jolt needed to improve
public schools
'There's a belief among the bureaucrats in
the public school system that as long as you're poor, you're
not expected to achieve,' said Williams, a Democrat who has
represented her district for the past decade."
--Associated Press, December 14, 1990
"Williams proposed a modest school-voucher program, approved
by the Wisconsis Legislature, that gave 1,000 poor inner-
city students $2,500. vouchers they could use to attend
private schools.'
B.
KIMI GRAY
"Miss Gray, dozens of other Kenil-worth-Parkside residents
and advocates of resident-managed complexes stubbornly
fought with the D.C. and federal governments for 10 years to
get the ownership of the 464-unit Northeast complex
transferred to the tenants. On Friday, they finally
succeeded."
"At a ceremony on the apartment grounds, Jack Kemp and
D.C. Mayor Marion Barry signed the papers officially marking
the sale of the complex--for $1--to the Kenilworth-Parkside
Resident Management Corp."
"The tenants adopted as their motto 'Dreams do come true. "
"The speakers also frequently noted that as recently as 1981
the sprawling complex. was plagued by drug dealers,
violence, a lack of services, and decaying and vandalized
buildings
Today the dealers are gone, many of the
buildings are renovated, and the resident management
corporation plans to sponsor a variety of programs and
services, including employment training and counseling,
housekeeping training and a small co-op store."
--Washington Times, October 1, 1990.
"Is she a Republican tool? She curses and says the people
with the luxury to think so are not forced to live in public
housing. 'If I'm being used, then I like it,' she said.
'I'm using them too. We're using each other.
"Ms. Gray's place in Republican iconography has upset some
who support the concept of tenant management--an idea that
arose on the political left. They worry about it is [sic]
being used as a ploy to justify ending Government support
for new low-income housing. 'A fraud, a snare, a delusion'
is what Florence Roisman, a staff attorney with the National
Housing Law Project, calls Mr. Kemp's plans.'
"Is she unique? 'There's a Kimi Gray in every. public
housing development in America, said Ms. Gray. 'Let's just
hope she's not as obese as I am.
"Where do her political loyalties reside? She has a stock
way of explaining that she is loyal to whoever will further
her cause."
"Ms. Gray's improbably path to prominence began with a
number of backward steps. She had her first child at the
age of 14, and had borne five by the time she was 19. When
her marriage fell apart, Ms. Gray and her children turned to
welfare. In 1966, at the age of 21, she secured an
apartment at Kenilworth, the low-rise complex of 37
buildings that became her life's work."
"The secret to her success, Ms. Gray said, is 'residents
being in control of their own destiny.'
****"And why does Ms. Gray want to own her own home? The
question catches her in a rare moment of surprise, as though
the answer should be self-evident, and she said:
'I want help on my taxes. I want to leave something to
my children. I want to own some brick. That's the
American dream, isn't it?'"
--The New York Times, July 13, 1990
III. EXCERPTS
"
calls for sweeping reform to break the logjam that has
choked black progress
"
--Charles Murray
"
the transformation from blacks-as-people-like-us to
blacks-as-victims."
--ibid.
"
Perhaps inevitably at such a point, when white guilt was
at its most acute, some whites not only cried 'mea culpa'
for the sins of their race but decided to stop treating
blacks as people like everyone else and instead grant them
moral exemption."
--ibid.
"Each of these three trends in the evolution of civil
rights--toward regulation of private behavior, preferential
legislation for groups, and double standards for whites and
blacks--was latently poisonous. During the 1970s, the
poison began to set. Schemes for aggressive, court-ordered
school busing infuriated white parents. Quota-based
affirmative action plans for hiring new employees alienated
blue-collar workers. White students in the nation's
universities watched their black counterparts being admitted
with lower test scores and special dispensations. By the
1980s, we had achieved the worst possible world, in which
whites were resentful, a self-righteous civil rights
rhetoric had lost its moral energy, and blacks themselves,
especially low-income blacks, were losing ground."
--Clint Bolick
Thomas Paine: "'We must return to first principles. and
think, as if we were the first men that thought.
" Paine also boldly declared that 'We have the power to
begin the world over again. The 'power' Paine referred to,
of course, was not the coercive apparatus of the state, but
rather the power of the ideas of liberty.
--ibid.
"Those who set the agenda enjoy an 'enormous advantage,'
argues Nathan Glazer, since they 'are seen as moral, and a
moral advantage in politics, being on the side of right, is
worth a good deal.
--ibid.
"Abstract invocations of a 'color-blind society' ring hollow
unless accompanied by a demonstrated commitment to make good
on the promise of civil rights for all Americans."
--ibid.
"One advantage of this empowerment strategy is that it by
definition expands opportunities, as opposed to contemporary
civil rights policies that merely redistribute rights. "
--ibid.
"Once again, Tom Paine's words are instructive: 'Tyranny,
like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this
consolation with us, the harder the conflict, the more
glorious the triumph.
--ibid.
"That those who would claim the mantle of civil rights would
find themselves anywhere other than marching shoulder to
shoulder with Ego Brown and Mark Anthony Nevels suggests
that the civil rights movement has somewhere taken a wrong
turn. "
"America has fought at least three wars to defend and
preserve that precious consensus (on what civil rights
mean). The American Revolution, to establish the civil
rights of the colonists; the Civil War, to extend those
rights to all Americans; and World War II, to protect those
rights against totalitarianism.
This traditional vision of civil rights is grounded in
a commitment to individual self-determination, and it
recognizes that any attempt to use the state's power to go
beyond that point will ultimately detract from the
underlying goal of individual sovereignty.'
"Civil rights--the rights individuals retain when they leave
a state of nature and form civil societies--consist of all
the pre-existing natural rights save one: the right to judge
one's own actions."
" (Martin Luther) King firmly aligned himself with 'what is
best in the American dream" and dedicated himself to the
goal of 'bringing our nation back to the great wells of
democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in
their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence.' For King, the Declaration established 'that
there are certain basic rights that are neither conferred by
nor derived from the state, a characteristic that
distinguishes America 'from systems of government which make
the state an end within itself.
"Traditionally, the civil rights movement sought to restrict
the power of government; following the Civil War, the
abolitionists used their political power to that end. But
the civil rights leadership elite during the 1960s flexed
its newfound political muscle in different ways, delivering
tangible benefits to its perceived constituency."
"
the 200-year quest for universal rights was reduced to
the status of a special interest lobby; its dynamic
leadership transformed itself into an establishment seeking
to perpetuate its existence and to expand its power. "
"As Friedrich Hayek explains, 'From the fact that people are
very different it follows that, if we treat them equally,
the result must be inequality in their actual position, and
that the only way to place them in an equal position would
be to treat them differently. Equal outcomes thus require
'discriminatory coercion, which violates both equal
treatment and individual liberty. Concludes Hayek,
'Equality before the law and material equality are therefore
not only different but are in conflict with each other; and
we can achieve either the one or the other, but not both at
the same time.
"
the revised civil rights agenda has shifted from the
assertion of absolute rights to a negotiation of
entitlements.
"
"Charles Murray has ably documented that the growth of the
welfare state has led to a decline in socio-economic
advances for minorities and the poor. Rather, those who
successfully entered the economic mainstream traditionally
did so either through labor, entrepreneurship, education, or
a combination of those."
THE
HERITAGE
LECTURES
Black History
29
O
Month 1990 At
The Heritage
Foundation
By Glenn C. Loury
J. Kenneth Blackwell
Robert L. Woodson
Rev. Buster Soaries
Paul L. Pryde
The
C
Herítage Foundation
The
Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation was established in 1973 as a nonpartisan, tax-exempt policy
research institute dedicated to the principles of free competitive enterprise, limited govern-
ment, individual liberty, and a strong national defense. The Foundation's research and study
programs are designed to make the voices of responsible conservatism heard in Washington,
D.C., throughout the United States, and in the capitals of the world.
Heritage publishes its research in a variety of formats for the benefit of policy makers, the
communications media, the academic, business and financial communities, and the public
at large. Over the past five years alone The Heritage Foundation has published some 1,000
books, monographs, and studies, ranging in size from 953-page government blueprint,
Mandate for Leadership III: Policy Strategies for the 1990s, to more frequent "Critical
Issues" monographs and the topical "Backgrounders" and "Issue Bulletins" of a dozen
pages. Heritage's other regular publications include the SDI Report, U.S.S.R. Monitor,
Heritage Foundation Federal Budget Reporter, Business/Education Insider, Mexico Watch,
and the quarterlies Education Update and Policy Review..
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tional opinion leaders and policy makers to discuss issues and ideas in a continuing series of
seminars, lectures, debates, and briefings.
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Note: Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The
Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.
The Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
U.S.A.
202/546-4400
Black History Month 1990
At The Heritage Foundation
INTRODUCTION
The lectures in this series mark The Heritage Foundation's observance of Black History
Month 1990. They represent a new vibrancy within the conservative movement to under-
stand better the concerns and perspectives of African Americans and to participate in the
public policy debate within the black community. Just as a new generation of conservative
leaders seeks new solutions to promote economic liberty and individual empowerment for
all Americans, a new generation of black leaders is emerging to challenge the dominance of
liberals who claim to speak for all African Americans.
The lectures here do not focus on the victimization of blacks or on the racism of whites.
Instead, they explore the historic strengths of the black community, the tradition of
entrepreneurship, work ethic, and strong moral values that held the community together
even during the height of racism and segregation. The speakers, who are black, glean from
black history the essential elements of a contemporary strategy for black political and
economic empowerment. They offer new solutions grounded in conservative principles of
individual liberty, limited government, and free competitive enterprise. These conservative
principles, the speakers demonstrate, have deep roots in the black community.
Harvard Professor of Political Economy Glenn Loury calls on liberals and conservatives
alike to renew Martin Luther King's quest for a society in which race is irrelevant. To con-
servatives, he advises: "Rather than simply incanting the 'personal responsibility' mantra,
we must also be engaged in helping these people who so desperately need our help." And
Loury chastises liberals who "require blacks to present ourselves to American society as
permanent victims, incapable of advance without state-enforced philanthropy.. Loury
challenges black Americans to reject "the role of the victim," and instead aggressively com-
pete for opportunity: "There is a great, existential challenge facing black America today -
the challenge of taking control of our own futures by exerting the requisite moral leader-
ship, making the sacrifices of time and resources, and building the needed institutions so
that black social and economic development may be advanced." As "consummate victims,"
concludes Loury, blacks will achieve "not the freedom so long sought by our ancestors, but,
instead, a continuing serfdom."
Like Loury, J. Kenneth Blackwell, former Deputy Under Secretary for Intergovernmen-
tal Relations at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, admonishes con-
servatives for their failure to communicate their positive message to the black community.
Blackwell advises conservatives to "put our facts out front," and "help build black
America." He suggests that conservatives work to understand better the plight of poor
blacks: "For every welfare cheat," says Blackwell, "there are dozens who themselves have
been cheated by misspent, misconceived, and mal-administered poverty programs. These
people deserve our help in devising better alternatives - not the additional burden of being
blamed by us for the disincentive effects of programs they didn't create, don't control, and
can't get away from."
i
Robert Woodson, President of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise,
chronicles the rich history of public policy debate in the black community generated by such
leaders as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and Marcus Garvey.
Yet, Woodson says, that tradition of discussion in recent years has been choked off. "From
the time of slavery up until the death of Martin Luther King, voices of many persuasions
were heard as we sought to shape our destiny as black Americans. Since then there has
been little or no substantive debate. We have allowed our dynamic diversity of thought to
be muted in a predictable monolith." Woodson concludes that finding solutions to black
poverty will require a revival of such diversity and debate within the black community.
The Reverend Buster Soaries describes how traditional moral values of the black com-
munity guaranteed the success of the civil rights struggle. He invokes Martin Luther King's
plea that people be judged by the "content of their character" to demonstrate that black
leaders historically emphasized individual moral character as the fundamental prerequisite
to advancing civil rights. "There was a common understanding that we must reserve the
right to inspect the personal integrity of the victim before we cry justice, even to the oppres-
sors," says Soaries. Reverend Soaries asserts that to further advance, the black community
must return to the tradition of "moral strength" that framed the views of such leaders as
Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Bishop J.W. Hood.
Paul Pryde's lecture on creating investment in the black community echoes Glenn
Loury's message that real progress must come from within the black community. Pryde, a
Howard University graduate and author of the 1989 book Black Entrepreneurship in
America, says innovation within the black community is the key to black advancement. He
cites black history to buttress his view, noting that such black leaders as Martin Luther
King, Malcolm X., A. Philip Randolph, and Marcus Garvey were innovators who "recog-
nized, essentially, that the African American community has got to use its own resources to
solve its problems." These leaders, Pryde continues, "looked to government to create condi-
tions under which African Americans, black Americans, themselves, could solve their
problems. We need to return to that sort of innovative spirit."
Together, the five Heritage Lectures in this Black History Month series convey a message
of pride in black history, and hope for building on that rich tradition. They offer a blueprint
for progress, rooted in the conservative values that have shaped black history and progress.
And more, the lectures outline the foundations of a new partnership between African
Americans and conservative policy makers. A partnership that is consistent with history and
essential for the future.
Mark B. Liedl
Director, New Majority Project
ii
Achieving the "Dream":
A Challenge to Liberals and to Conservatives
in the Spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Glenn C. Loury
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of
witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders, and the
sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance
the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1, NIV)
The struggle for freedom and equality is the central theme in the black American
historical experience. This struggle, in turn, has played a profound role in shaping the
contemporary American social and political conscience. The trauma of slavery, the
fratricide of the Civil War, the profound legal ramifications of the Reconstruction
amendments, the long dark night of post-Reconstruction retreat from the moral and
practical implications of black citizenship, the collective redemption of the Civil Rights
Movement - these have worked to make us Americans the people we are. Only the massive
westward migration and the still continuing flow of immigrants to our shores rival this
history of race relations as factors defining the American character.
Beginning in the mid-1950s and culminating a decade later, the Civil Rights Movement
wrought a profound change in American race relations. Its goal was to achieve equal
citizenship for blacks; it was believed by many that social and economic equality would
follow in the wake of this accomplishment. The civil rights revolution largely succeeded in
its effort to eliminate legally enforced second class citizenship for blacks. The legislation
and court rulings to which it led effected sweeping changes in the American institutions of
education, employment, and electoral politics. So broad was the wake of this social
upheaval that the rights of women, homosexuals, the elderly, the handicapped were
redefined, in large part, as a consequence of it.
Forcing a Redefinition. This social transformation represents a remarkable, unparalleled
experience, graphically illustrating the virtue and vitality of our free institutions. In barely
the span of a generation, and with comparatively little violence, a despised and largely
disenfranchised minority descendant from chattel slaves used the courts, the legislature, the
press, and the rights of petition and assembly of our republic to force a redefinition of their
citizenship. One can begin to grasp the magnitude of this accomplishment by comparison
with the continuing turmoil which besets those many nations around the world suffering
under longstanding conflicts among racial and religious groups.
Glenn C. Loury is Professor of Political Economy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
He spoke at The Heritage Foundation on February 12, 1990, as part of a lecture series observing Black
History Month.
ISSN 0272-1155. ©1990 by The Heritage Foundation.
Unfulfilled Hope. Yet, despite this success, hope that the Movement would produce true
social and economic equality between the races remains unfulfilled. No compendium of
social statistics is needed to see the vast disparities in economic advantage which separate
the inner-city black poor from the rest of the nation. No profound talents of social
observation are required to notice the continuing tension, anger, and fear that shrouds our
public discourse on matters concerning race. When in 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr.
declared his "dream" - that we Americans should one day become a society where a
citizen's race would be an irrelevancy, where black and white children would walk
hand-in-hand, where persons would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character - this seemed to many Americans both a noble and attainable
goal. Today, even after having made his birth an occasion for national celebration, his
"dream" seems naively utopian - no closer to realization than on that hot August afternoon
when those inspiring words were first spoken.
Today black Americans, and the nation, face a crisis different in character though no less
severe in degree than that which occasioned the civil rights revolution. It is not a crisis,
however, which admits of treatment by use of the strategies that proved so successful in that
earlier era. The bottom stratum of the black community has compelling problems which can
no longer be blamed solely on white racism, which will not yield to protest marches or court
orders, and which force us to confront fundamental failures in lower class black urban
society. This crisis is particularly difficult for black leaders and the black middle class. For
this profound alienation of the ghetto poor from mainstream American life has continued
to grow worse in the years since the triumphs of the civil rights movement, even as the
success of that movement has provided the basis for an impressive expansion of economic
and political power for the black middle class.
Social Pathologies. There is no way to downplay the social pathologies that afflict the
urban underclass, just as it cannot be denied that vast new opportunities have opened for
blacks to enter into the mainstream of American life. In big city ghettos, the black youth
unemployment rate often exceeds 40 percent. Over one quarter of young black men in the
critical ages 20 to 24 years old, according to one recent study, have dropped out of the
economy, in the sense that they are not in school, not working, and not actively seeking
work. In the inner city, far more than half of all black babies are born out of wedlock. Black
girls between the ages of 15 and 19 constitute the most fertile population of that age group
in the industrialized world. The families which result are most often not self-supporting. The
level of dependency on public assistance for basic economic survival has essentially doubled
since 1964; almost one-half of all black children are supported in part by transfers from the
state and federal governments. Over half of black children in public primary and secondary
schools are concentrated in the nation's twelve largest central city school districts, where
the quality of education is poor, and where whites constitute only about a quarter of total
enrollment. Only about one black student in seven scores above the 50th percentile on
standardized college admissions tests. Blacks, though little more than a tenth of the
population, constitute approximately half of the imprisoned felons in the nation. Roughly
40 percent of those murdered in the U.S. are black men killed by other black men. In some
big cities black women face a risk of rape which is five time as great as that faced by whites.
These statistics depict an extent of deprivation, a degree of misery, a hopelessness and
despair, an alienation which is difficult for most Americans, who do not have direct
2
experience with this social stratum, to comprehend. They pose an enormous challenge to
the leadership of our nation, and to the black leadership. Yet, we seem increasingly unable
to conduct a political dialogue out of which might develop a consensus about how to
respond to this reality. There are two common, partisan themes which dominate the current
debate. One is to blame it all on racism, to declare that this circumstance proves the
continued existence of old-type American racial enmity, only in a more subtle, modernized
and updated form. This is the view of many civil rights activists. From this perspective the
tragedy of the urban underclass is a civil rights problem, curable by civil rights methods.
Black youth unemployment represents the refusal of employers to hire competent and
industrious young men because of their race. Black welfare dependency is the inescapable
consequence of the absence of opportunity. Black academic underperformance reflects
racial bias in the provision of public education. Black incarceration rates are the result of
the bias of the police and judiciary.
The other theme, characterized by the posture of many on the right in our politics, is to
blame it on the failures of "Great Society liberals," to chalk it up to the follies of big
government and big spending, to see the problem as the legacy of a tragically misconceived
welfare state. A key feature of this view is the apparent absence of any felt need to
articulate a "policy" on this new race problem. It is as though those shaping the domestic
agenda of this government do not see the explicitly racial character of this problem, as if
they do not understand the historical experiences which link, symbolically and
sociologically, the current urban underclass to our long, painful legacy of racial trauma.
Their response, quite literally, has been to promulgate a de facto doctrine of "benign
neglect" on the issue of continuing racial inequality.
Competing Visions. These responses feed on each other. The civil rights leaders, repelled
by the Reagan and now Bush Administrations' public vision, see more social spending as
the only solution to the problem. They characterize every question raised about the cost
effectiveness or appropriateness of a welfare program as evidence of a lack of concern
about the black poor; they identify every affirmative action effort, whether it is aimed at
attaining skills training for the ghetto poor or securing a fat municipal procurement
contract for a black millionaire, as necessary and just recompense in light of our history of
racial oppression. Conservatives in and out of government, repelled by the public vision of
civil rights advocates and convinced that the programs of the past have failed, when
addressing racial issues at all talk in formalistic terms about the principle of "color blind
state action." Its civil rights officials absurdly claim that they are the true heirs of Martin
Luther King's moral legacy, for it is they who remain loyal to his "color blind" ideal - as if
King's moral leadership consisted of this and nothing else. Its spokesmen point to the
"trickling down" of the benefits of economic growth as the ultimate solution to these
problems; it courts the support and responds to the influence of segregationist elements; it
remains at this late date without a positive program of action aimed at narrowing the
yawning chasm separating the black poor from the rest of the nation.
There is, many would now admit, merit in the conservative criticism of liberal social
policy. It is clear that the Great Society approach to the problems of poor blacks has been
inadequate. Intellectually honest persons must now concede that it is not nearly as easy to
truly help people as the big spenders would suggest. The proper measure of "caring" ought
not be the size of budget expenditures on poverty programs, if the result is that the
3
recipients remain dependent on such programs. Moreover, many Americans have become
concerned about the neutrality toward values and behavior which was so characteristic of
the Great Society thrust, the aversion to holding persons responsible for those actions
which precipitated their own dependence, the feeling that "society" is to blame for all the
misfortune in the world. Characterizing the problem of the ghetto poor as due to white
racism is one variant of this argument that "society" has caused the problem. It overlooks
the extent to which values and behaviors of inner-city black youth are implicated in the
difficulty.
Many American, black and white, have also been disgusted with the way in which this
dangerous circumstance is exploited for political gain by professional civil rights and
poverty advocates. They have watched the minority youth unemployment rate be cited in
defense of special admissions programs to elite law schools. They have seen public officials,
caught in their illegal indiscretions, use the charge of racism as a cover for their personal
failings of character. They have seen themselves pilloried as "racists" by civil rights lobbyists
for taking the opposite side of legitimately arguable policy debates.
Ideological Barrier. Yet, none of this excuses (though it may help to explain) the fact that
our national government has failed to engage this problem with the seriousness and energy
which it requires. It has permitted ideology to stand in the way of the formulation of
practical programs which might begin to chip away at this dangerous problem. It has
permitted the worthy goals of reducing taxes and limiting growth in the size of government
to crowd from the domestic policy agenda the creative reflection which will obviously be
needed to formulate a new, non-welfare oriented approach to this problem.
Ironically, each party to this debate has helped to make viable the otherwise problematic
posture of the other. The lack of a positive, high priority response from a series of
Republican Administrations to what is now a longstanding, continuously worsening social
problem has allowed politically marginal and intellectually moribund elements to retain a
credibility and force in our political life far beyond that which their accomplishments would
otherwise support. Many are reluctant to criticize them because they do not wish to be
identified with a Republicant Administration's policy on racial matters. Moreover, the shrill,
vitriolic, self-serving, and obviously unfair attacks on Administration officials by the civil
rights lobby has drained their criticism of much of its legitimacy. The "racist" epithet, like
the little boy's cry of "wolf," is a charge so often invoked these days that is has lost its
historic moral force.
Political Quagmire. The result of this symbiosis has been to impede the establishment of
a political consensus sufficient to support sustained action on the country's most pressing
domestic problem. Many whites, chastened by the apparent failures of 1960s-style social
engineering but genuinely concerned about the tragedy unfolding in our inner cities, are
reluctant to engage this issue. It seems to them a political quagmire in which one is forced
to ally oneself with a civil rights establishment no longer able to command broad respect.
Many blacks who have begun to have doubts about the effectiveness of liberal social policy
are hindered in their articulation of an alternative vision by fear of being too closely linked
in the public mind with a policy of indifference to racial concerns.
I can personally attest to the difficulties which this environment has created. I am an
acknowledged critic of the civil rights leadership. There are highly partisan policy debates in
4
which I have gladly joined on the Republican side - on federal enterprise zones, on a youth
opportunity wage, on educational vouchers for low-income students, on stimulating
ownership among responsible public housing tenants, on requiring work from able-bodied
welfare recipients, on dealing sternly with those who violently brutalize their neighbors. I
am no enemy of right-to-work laws; I do not despise the institution of private property; I do
not trust the capacity of public bureaucracies to substitute for the fruit of private initiative. I
am, to my own continuing surprise, philosophically more conservative than the vast majority
of my academic peers. And I love, and believe in, this democratic republic.
Needed Commitment. But I am also a black man, a product of Chicago's South Side, a
veteran in spirit of the civil rights revolution. I am a partisan on behalf of the inner-city
poor. I agonize at the extraordinary waste of human potential which the despair of ghetto
America represents. I cannot help but lament, deeply and personally, how little progress we
have made in relieving the suffering that goes on there. It is not enough, far from being
enough, for me to fault liberals for much that has gone wrong. This is not, for me, a mere
contest of ideologies or a competition for electoral votes. And it is because I see this
problem as so far from solution, yet so central to my own sense of satisfaction with our
public life, that I despair of our governments's lack of commitment to its resolution. I
believe that such a commitment, coming from the highest levels of our government, without
prejudice with respect to the specific methods to be employed in addressing the issue, but
involving a public acknowledgement of the unacceptability of the current state of affairs, is
now required. This is not a call for big spending. Nor is it an appeal for a slick public
relations campaign to show that George Bush "cares" as much as Jesse Jackson. Rather, it
is a plaintive cry for the need to actively engage this problem, for the elevation of concern
for racial inequality to a position of priority on our government's domestic affairs agenda.
In some of my speeches and writing on this subject in the past I have placed great weight
on the crucial importance to blacks of "self-help." Some may see this current posture as at
variance with those arguments. It is not. I have also written critically of blacks' continued
reliance on civil rights era protest and legal strategies, and of the propagation of affirmative
action throughout our employment and educational institutions. I have urged blacks to
move "Beyond Civil Rights." I have spoken of the difference between the "enemy without"
- racism - and the "enemy within" the black community - those dysfunctional behaviors of
young blacks which perpetuate poverty and dependency. I have spoken of the need for
blacks to face squarely the political reality that we now live in the "post-civil rights era";
that claims based on racial justice carry now much less force in American public life than
they once did; that it is no longer acceptable to seek benefits for our people in the name of
justice, while revealing indifference or hostility to the rights of others. Nothing I have said
here should be construed as a retraction of these views. But selling these positions within
the black community is made infinitely more difficult when my black critics are able to say:
"But your argument plays into the hands of those who are looking for an excuse to abandon
the black poor"; and when I am unable credibly to contradict them.
It is for this reason that the deteriorating quality of our public debate about civil rights
matters has come to impede the internal realignment of black political strivings which is
now so crucial to the interest of the inner-city poor, and the political health of the nation.
There is a great, existential challenge facing black America today - the challenge of taking
control of our own futures by exerting the requisite moral leadership, making the sacrifices
5
of time and resources, and building the needed institutions so that black social and
economic development may be advanced. No matter how windy the debate becomes among
white liberals and conservatives as to what should be done in the public sphere, meeting
this self-creating challenge ultimately depends upon black action. It is to make a mockery of
the ideal of freedom to hold that, as free men and women, blacks ought nonetheless
passively to wait for white Americans, of whatever political persuasion, to come to the
rescue. A people who languish in dependency, while the means through which they might
work toward their own advancement exist, have surrendered their claim to dignity, and to
the respect of their fellow citizens. A truly free people must accept responsibility for their
fate, even when it does not lie wholly in their hands.
One Ingredient for Progress. But to say this, which is crucial for blacks to consider at this
late date, is not to say that there is not public responsibility. It is obvious that in the areas of
education, employment training, enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, and the provision
of minimal subsistence to the impoverished, the government must be involved. There are
programs - preschool education for one - which cost money, but which seem to pay even
greater dividends. It is a tragic error that those of us who make the "self-help" argument in
internal dialogue concerning alternative development strategies for black Americans are
often construed by the political right as making a public argument for a policy of "benign
neglect." Expanded sèlf-reliance is but one ingredient in the recipe for black progress,
distinguished by the fact that it is essential for black dignity, which in turn is a precondition
for true equality of the races in this country.
It makes sense to call for greater self-reliance at this time because some of what needs to
be done cannot in the nature of the case be undertaken by government. Dealing with
behavioral problems, with community values, with the attitudes and beliefs of black
youngsters about responsibility, work, family, and schooling is not something government is
well suited to do. The teaching of "oughts" properly belongs in the hands of private,
voluntary associations - churches, families, neighborhood groups. It is also reasonable to
ask those blacks who have benefited from the special minority programs - such as the
set-asides for black businesses - to contribute to the alleviation of the suffering of poor
blacks, for without the visible ghetto poor, such programs would lack the political support
needed for their continuation. Yet, and obviously, such internal efforts cannot be a panacea
for the problems of the inner-city. This is truly an American problem; we all have a stake in
its alleviation; we all have a responsibility to address it forthrightly.
Permanent Victims. Thus, to begin to make progress on this extremely difficult matter
will require enhanced private and public commitment. Yet, to the extent that blacks place
too much focus on the public responsibility, we place in danger the attainment of true
equality for black Americans. By "true equality" I mean more than an approximately equal
material provision to members of the groups. Also crucial, I maintain, is an equality of
respect and standing in the eyes of one's fellow citizens. Yet much of the current advocacy
of blacks' interests seems inconsistent with achieving equal respect for black Americans.
Leaders, in the civil rights organizations as well as in the halls of Congress, remain wedded
to a conception of the black condition, and a method of appealing to the rest of the polity
which undermines the dignity of our people. Theirs is too much the story of discrimination,
repression, hopelessness, and frustration; and too little the saga of uplift and the march
forward to genuine empowerment whether others cooperate or not. They seek to make
6
blacks into the conscience of America, even if the price is the loss of our souls. They require
blacks to present ourselves to American society as permanent victims, incapable of advance
without the state-enforced philanthropy of possibly resentful whites. By evolving past
suffering and current deprivations experienced by the ghetto poor, some black leaders seek
to feed the guilt, and worse, the pity of the white establishment. But I hold that we blacks
ought not to allow ourselves to become ever-ready doomsayers, always alert to exploit black
suffering by offering it up to more or less sympathetic whites as a justification for
incremental monetary transfers. Such a posture seems to evidence a fundamental lack of
confidence in the ability of blacks to make it American, as so many millions of immigrants
have done and continue to do. Even if this method were to succeed in gaining the money, it
is impossible that true equality of status in American society could lie at the end of such a
road.
Much of the current, quite heated, debate over affirmative action reveals a similar lack of
confidence in the capabilities of blacks to compete in American society. My concern is with
the inconsistency between the broad reliance on quotas by blacks, and the attainment of
"true equality." There is a sense in which the demand for quotas, which many see as the
only path to equality for blacks, concedes at the outset the impossibility that blacks could
ever be truly equal citizens. For, aside from those instances in which hiring goals are
ordered by a court subsequent to a finding of illegal discrimination, and with the purpose of
providing relief for those discriminated against, the use of differential standards for the
hiring of blacks and whites acknowledges the inability of blacks to perform up to the white
standard.
Double Standards. So widespread has such practice become that, especially in the elite
levels of employment, all blacks must now deal with the perception that without a quota,
they would not have their jobs. All blacks, some of our "leaders" seem proud to say, owe
their accomplishments to political pressures for diversity. And the effects of such thinking
may be seen in our response to almost every instance of racially differential performance.
When blacks cannot pass a high school proficiency test as a condition of obtaining a diploma
- throw out the test. When black teachers cannot exhibit skills at the same level as whites,
the very idea of testing teachers' skills is attacked. If black athletes less frequently achieve
the minimal academic standard set for those participating in inter-collegiate sports, then let
us promulgate for them a separate, lower standard, even as we accuse of racism those
suggesting the need for a standard in the first place. If young black men are arrested more
frequently than whites for some criminal offense, then let us decry the probability that
police are disproportionately concerned about the crimes which blacks commit. If black
suspension rates are higher than whites in a given school district - well, let's investigate that
district for racist administrative practice. When black students are unable to gain admission
at the same rate as whites to the elite public exam school in Boston, let's ask a federal judge
to mandate black excellence.
The inescapable truth of the matter is that no judge can mandate excellence. No selection
committee can create distinction in black scholars. No amount of circuitous legal
maneuvering can obviate the social reality of inner-city black crime, or of whites' and
blacks' fear of that crime. No degree of double standard-setting can make black students
competitive or comfortable in the academically exclusive colleges and universities. No
amount of political gerrymandering can create genuine sympathy among whites for the
7
interests and strivings of black people. Yet it is to such double standard- setting, such
gerrymandering, such maneuvering that many feel compelled to turn.
Wrongs of the Past. Signs of the intellectual exhaustion, and of the increasing political
ineffectiveness of this type of leadership are now evident. Yet we cling to this method
because of the way in which the claims of blacks have been most successfully pressed during
the civil rights era. These claims have been based, above all else, on the status of blacks as
America's historical victims. Maintenance of this claiming status requires constant
emphasis on the wrongs of the past and exaggeration of present tribulations. He who leads a
group of historical victims, as victims, must never let "them" forget what "they" have done:
he must renew the indictment and keep alive the moral asymmetry implicit in the
respective positions of victim and victimizer. He is the preeminent architect of what
philosopher G.K. Minogue has called "suffering situations." The circumstance of his group
as "underdog" becomes his most valuable political asset. Such a posture, especially in the
political realm, militates against an emphasis on personal responsibility within the group,
and induces those who have been successful to attribute their accomplishments to
fortuitous circumstance, and not to their own abilities and character.
It is difficult to overemphasize the self-defeating dynamic at work here. The dictates of
political advocacy require that personal inadequacies. among blacks be attributed to "the
system," and that emphasis by black leaders on self-improvement be denounced as
irrelevant, self-serving, dishonest. Individual black men and women simply cannot fail on
their own, they must be seen as never having had a chance. But where failure at the
personal level is impossible, there can also be no personal successes. For a black to
embrace the Horatio Alger myth, to assert as a guide to personal action that "there is
opportunity in America," becomes a politically repugnant act. For each would-be black
Horatio Alger indicts as inadequate, or incomplete, the deeply entrenched (and quite
useful) notion that individual effort can never overcome the "inheritance of race." Yet
where there can be no black Horatio Algers to celebrate, sustaining an ethos of
responsibility which might serve to extract minimal effort from the individual in the face of
hardship becomes impossible as well.
James Baldwin spoke to this problem with great insight long ago. In his 1949 essay
"Everybody's Protest Novel," Baldwin said of the protagonist of Richard Wright's
celebrated novel Native Son:
Bigger Thomas stands on a Chicago street corner watching air
planes flown by white men racing against the sun and 'Goddamn'
he says, the bitterness bubbling up like blood, remembering a
million indignities, the terrible, rat-infested house, the
humiliation of home-relief, the intense, aimless, ugly
bickering, hating it; hatred smolders through these pages like
sulfur fire. All of Biggers's life is controlled, defined by his
hatred and his fear. And later, his fear drives him to murder
and his hatred to rape; he dies, having come, through this violence,
and we are told, for the first time, to a kind of life, having for the
first time redeemed his manhood.
8
But Baldwin rejected this "redemption through rebellion" thesis as untrue to life and
unworthy of art. "Bigger's tragedy," he concluded,
is not that he is cold or black or hungry, not even that he is American,
black; but that he has accepted a theology that denies him life, that he
admits the possibility of his being sub-human and feels constrained,
therefore, to battle for his humanity according to those brutal criteria
bequeathed him at his birth. But our humanity is our burden, our life;
we need not battle for it; we need only to do what is infinitely more
difficult - that is, accept it. The failure of the protest novel lies in its
rejéction of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread,
power, in its insistence that it is his categorization alone which is real
and which cannot be transcended (emphasis added).
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. While Baldwin's interest was essentially literary, mine is
political. In either case, however, our struggle is against the deadening effect which
emanates from the belief that, for the black man, "it is his categorization alone which is real
and cannot be transcended." The spheres of politics and of culture intersect in this
understanding of what the existence of systemic constraint implies for the possibilities of
individual personality. For too many blacks, dedication to the cause of reform has been
allowed to supplant the demand for individual accountability; race, and the historic crimes
associated with it, has become the single lens through which to view social experience; the
infinite potential of real human beings has been surrendered on the altar of protest. In this
way does the prophecy of failure, evoked by those who take the fact of racism as barring
forever blacks' access to the rich possibilities of American life, fulfill itself: "Loyalty to the
race" in the struggle to be free of oppression requires the sacrifice of a primary instrument
through which genuine freedom might be attained.
Moreover, the fact that there has been in the U.S. such a tenuous commitment to social
provision to the indigent, independently of race, reinforces the ideological trap. Blacks
think we must cling to victim status because it provides the only secure basis upon which to
press for attention from the rest of the polity to the problems of our most disadvantaged
fellows. It is important to distinguish here between the socio-economic consequences of the
claims which are advanced on the basis of the victim status of blacks (such as the pressure
for racially preferential treatment), and their symbolic, ideological role. For even though
the results of this claiming often accrue to the advantage of better-off blacks, and in no way
constitute a solution to the problems of the poor, the desperate plight of the poorest makes
it unthinkable that whites could ever be "let off the hook" by relinquishing the historically
based claims - that is, by a broad acceptance within the black community of the notion that
individual blacks bear personal responsibility for their fate.
Societal Paradox. The dilemmas of the black underclass pose in stark terms the most
pressing, unresolved problem of the social and moral sciences: how to reconcile individual
and social responsibility. The problem goes back to Kant. The moral and social paradox of
society is this: we are on the one hand determined and constrained by social, cultural, not to
mention biological, forces. Yet, on the other hand, if society is to work we must believe and
behave as if we do indeed determine our actions. Neither of the pat political formulas for
dealing with this paradox is adequate by itself. The mother of a homeless family is not
simply a victim of forces acting on her; she is, in part, responsible for her plight and that of
9
her children. But she is also being acted on by forces - social, economic, cultural, political -
larger than herself. She is impacted by an environment; she is not an island; she does not
have complete freedom to determine her future. It is callous nonsense to insist that she
does, just as it is mindlessness to insist that she can do nothing for herself and her children
until "society" reforms. In fact, she is responsible for her condition; but we also must help
her - that is our responsibility.
"Responsibility Coin. "Now blacks have, in fact, been constrained by a history of racism
and limited opportunity. Some of these effects continue to manifest themselves into the
current day. Yet, now that greater opportunity exists, taking advantage of it requires that we
accept personal responsibility for our own fate, even though the effects of this past remain
with us, in part. But emphasis on this personal responsibility of blacks takes the political
pressure off of those outside the black community, who also have a responsibility, as
citizens of this republic, to be actively engaged in trying to change the structures that
constrain all of the poor, including the black poor, in such a way that they can more
effectively assume responsibility for themselves and exercise their inherent and morally
required capacity to choose. That is, there is an intrinsic link between these two sides of the
"responsibility coin" - between acceptance among blacks of personal responsibility for
their actions, and acceptance among all Americans of their social responsibilities as
citizens. My point to conservatives should be plain. Rather than simply incanting the
"personal responsibility" mantra, we must also be engaged in helping these people who so
desperately need our help. We are not relieved of our responsibility to do so by the fact that
Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson are promoting legislation aimed at helping this same
population with which we disagree.
My point to blacks should also be plain. What may seem to be an unacceptable political
risk is also an absolute moral necessity. This is a dilemma from which I believe blacks can
only escape by an act of faith - faith in ourselves, faith in our nation, and ultimately, faith in
the God of our forefathers. He has not brought us this far only to abandon us now. As
suggested by the citation from the book of Hebrews with which I began, we are indeed
"surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses" - the spirits of our forebears who, under much
more difficult and hostile conditions, made it possible for us to enjoy the enormous
opportunities which we have today. It would be a profound desecration of their memory
were we to preach despair to our children when we are in fact so much closer than were our
fathers to the cherished goal of full equality. We must believe that our fellow citizens are
now truly ready to allow us an equal place in this society. We must believe that we have
within ourselves the ability to succeed on a level playing field, if we give it our all. We must
be prepared to put the past to rest; to forgive if not forget; to retire the outmoded and
inhibiting role of "the victim."
Profound Tragedy. Embrace of the role of "the victim" has unacceptable costs. It is
undignified and demeaning. It leads to a situation where the celebration among blacks of
individual success and of the personal traits associated with it comes to be seen, quite
literally, as a betrayal of the black poor, because such celebration undermines the
legitimacy of their most valuable political asset - their supposed helplessness. There is,
hidden in this desperate assertion of victim status by blacks to an increasingly skeptical
white polity, an unfolding tragedy of profound proportion. Black leaders, confronting their
people's need and their own impotency, believe they must continue to portray blacks, as
10
"the conscience of the nation." Yet the price extracted for playing the role, in incompletely
fulfilled lives and unrealized personal potential, amounts to a "loss of our own souls." As
consummate victims we lay ourselves at the feet of our fellows, exhibiting our lack of
achievement as evidence of their failure, hoping to wring from their sense of conscience
what we must assume, by the very logic of our claiming, lies beyond our individual
capacities to attain, all the while bemoaning how limited that sense of conscience seems to
be. This way lies not the "freedom" so long sought by our ancestors, but, instead, a
continuing serfdom.
11
Strengthening the Social Pillars of the Black Community
By J. Kenneth Blackwell
I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak before The Heritage Foundation during
this unique celebration of Black History Month. As many of you may know, I recently
resigned my appointment at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and
announced my candidacy for the Congress. Over the weekend, I've been back in the district
in Ohio, starting what will be a long - and we hope successful - campaign.
As I turn my thoughts from government to campaigning, the matter of building a bridge
between the conservative movement and the black community takes on new importance.
I am conservative. I am black. That makes me a member of two minority groups.
What saddens me is that while conservatives, as a subset of our society, are growing; and
blacks, as a subset of our society, are growing; the subset made up of black conservatives
isn't growing - at least fast enough!
This forum is a good start toward discovering why that is the case. I believe there are two
principal reasons for the failure of conservatism to attract a greater black intellectual
following and a greater black popular following.
The first reason has to do with something that people love to talk about here in
Washington - appearances. We talk about the appearance of impropriety when it comes to
something that might not be unethical, but could be made to seem unethical. We talk about
spin when we discuss matters with the media, so that what appears in a television report or
newspaper account reflects what we want it to. We talk about perception being reality, in
wise voices steeped in the lore of Washington's mysterious rules of power and politics.
Appearances Over Reality. We love appearances. We have embraced and accepted
appearances, and transported them to a level of conscious importance on a par with - if not
above - reality itself.
Yet though we live and die by appearances in Washington, we seem as conservatives to
have a tough time facing up to the way we appear to America's blacks.
There is a line by Ralph Waldo Emerson which I think epitomizes our dilemma. "There is
always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism," Emerson said, "joined with a
certain superiority in its fact."
How can we be so right, and still not have any bridge to black America? In a decade in
which the conservative ideal of individual liberty, individual opportunity, and individual
choice have triumphed over totalitarianism - from Czechoslovakia to Nicaragua - why
doesn't its light shine more brightly in America's inner cities?
Let us accept for the moment that Emerson's superiority of fact is on our side.
Perhaps the problem is a "certain meanness," to repeat Emerson's phrase.
J. Kenneth Blackwell is former Deputy Under Secretary for Intergovernmental Relations at the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development.
He spoke at The Heritage Foundation on February 27, 1990, as part of a lecture series observing Black History Month.
ISSN 0272-1155. ©1990 by The Heritage Foundation.
Reality - the superiority of facts - might be on conservatism's side, but we will not
succeed as conservatives in building bridges to America's blacks until appearances are also
on our side.
Unity of a Dream. Let me mention just one example from the early 1980s - conservative
opposition to a national holiday in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King. Whether you believe
that civil disobedience is ever justified or not, whether you believe that contemporaries
should be honored in the same manner as Founding Fathers or Lincoln, whether you
believe that too-many holidays cost the economy too much in lost productivity isn't the issue.
To blacks and to many Americans of many other colors, Dr. King symbolizes the unity of
a dream we all embrace: the dream of equal opportunity, a chance to rise to the limits our
initiative will take us.
When Dr. King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and told a watching world he
had a dream, he was giving voice to the idealism that makes America a beacon to the world.
What he offered were profoundly conservative values in the deepest meaning of the word.
Yet in a few weeks of misguided conservative opposition to a holiday commemorating the
ideals he died for, we pulled down a lot of bridges that might have spanned the gulf
between us as conservatives and black America.
Words of Despair. Let us come to the end of the decade. A senator I admire much for his
principled conservatism, Barry Goldwater, pens his memoirs. They are, as he put it in his
foreword, "straight from the shoulder."
Yet when he comes to a discussion of the future of the Republican Party, in what he calls
a major challenge to the party, he minimizes the GOP's opportunities with blacks.
"Blacks," he writes, "seem rockbound to the Democrats." That will only change, he says,
as blacks begin to perceive, in his words, "that their disadvantaged place in society was
partly caused by the Big Brother syndrome of the Democrats."
These are the words of one of conservatism's 20th-century spiritual fathers. They are
words of despair, written in a passive voice.
It is not enough for us as conservatives to sit back and await a black awakening, a
disenchantment with the dependency-producing policies of the Democrats.
Yes, that disenchantment might come. Some would say we've already seen its
glimmerings in the work of a new generation of black intellectuals like Glenn Loury,
Robert Woodson, Thomas Sowell, and others.
But let us not forget that although the Democratic social policies intended to foster black
economic and social progress have not worked as planned, they nonetheless represented a
positive, active agenda for black America.
That is the difference between Goldwater's resignation when it comes to Republicans
and blacks, and the Democrats' tenacity.
We may wait a very long time for disenchantment to result in bridges being built from the
black community to conservatism. We will wait far less time if we as conservatives build
bridges to the black community.
We suffer some from the sins of our conservative forebears of the 1980s, who first
alienated and then wrote off blacks.
14
That is the past.
Now let us look at what can be accomplished by making appearances and reality work
together.
If we really want conservatism to have greater appeal to blacks, then we need a
conservative agenda for black progress.
"The Other America." This is the 26th anniversary of Michael Harrington's landmark
study, "The Other America." Harrington looked at the economic prosperity of the 1950s
and asked how so many were left out. It is a fitting question to ask now as we look back on
the 1980s - the longest peacetime economic expansion, with record numbers of jobs
created, a non-inflationary economy, a general - but uneven - prosperity.
According to the Census Bureau, in 1987 10 percent of whites lived in poverty -
compared to 33 percent of blacks. And that is only one measure of the other America. We
could look at infant mortality rates, intact households, incarceration rates for males, the
likelihood of suffering violence, the incidence of illnesses like cancer or heart disease that
could be treated with early diagnosis, and they will tell us the same thing. The other America
- black America and Hispanic America - is hurting.
Black America's political fate has been hitched to the Democratic ship of state, and now
black America is sinking. At a time like that, do you wait for the drowning man to swim to
you - or do you throw him a lifeline?
At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Jack Kemp, with whom I am
proud to have served, knows that you throw a lifeline.
Economic empowerment is one agenda item for black America. And don't fool
yourselves about anyone with a good business plan and a good entrepreneurial spirit being
able to find capital.
Seeking A Fair Hearing. One of my favorite success stories from the 1980s comes from
Dr. Ernest Bates. He's the founder of one of the country's largest leasing firms for medical
diagnostic services. Dr. Bates was typical of many blacks in the 1950s. He worked hard in
school and in the Army to become a neurosurgeon. He developed a successful practice in
California, earning $500,000 a year by the 1970s.
But he knew that many hospitals couldn't afford to purchase expensive new diagnostic
technologies like CAT-Scan machinery, so he invested in a business to lease mobile
diagnostics to hospitals.
Like many start-up companies, his firm ran into difficulty. But Dr. Bates says that one of
the greatest difficulties he had was getting a fair hearing when he went to the Small
Business Administration, to venture capitalists, and to investment bankers on Wall Street.
Once they saw he was black, interest in his business plan simply evaporated; until he met
Michael Milken, then at Drexel Burnham Lambert, who provided American Diagnostic
Services with capital to expand. It's now one of the most successful medical leasing services
in America.
If a successful, black neurosurgeon can't get a fair hearing when he looks for support for a
business proposition at this point in 20th century America, where is an undereducated,
twenty-year-old black male supposed to turn?
15
Programs That Work. Economic empowerment has to begin in the black community.
Strengthening the black middle class is important but broadening the black middle class is
more important. And that will only come about as we determinedly seek new ways to lift
people from poverty.
It's not enough to say the Democrats' programs have failed. It's incumbent on us to
develop programs that will work.
And that requires a little soul-searching on our part. I don't know whether you consider
Thomas Hobbes to be a conservative, but his concept of human nature - life as "nasty,
brutish, and short," - is, I think, a sordid view of humanity.
Yet too many seem to share that view when it comes to analyzing poverty. We look for
the disincentive that keeps the recipients of poverty aid from working, instead of the
incentive we could provide to help them work.
The myth of rugged individualism often blinds us to the reality of social support that has
always been so vital in our history. Whether we're talking about barn raisings, field
clearings, or quilting bees, Americans have banded together to help one another since
frontier days.
We have to recognize that a welfare mother struggling to earn her G.E.D. needs a
network of support. We have to recognize that there is no stigma in that need.
In much conservative discussion of the welfare class, we seem to want to make villains out
of poverty programs' victims. For every welfare cheat, there are dozens who themselves
have been cheated by misspent, misconceived, and mal-administered poverty programs.
These people deserve our help in devising better alternatives - not the additional burden of
being blamed by us for the disincentive effects of programs they didn't create, don't control,
and can't get away from.
In short, we as conservatives need to decide we are more interested in lifting people from
poverty instead of blaming them for their circumstances.
Capacity-Building. Conservatism has to move away from anecdotes about welfare
chiselers and toward alternatives so we can create entrepreneurs. Let's get that "certain
meanness" out of our rhetoric, and put our facts up front.
Capacity-building, helping black Americans develop the skills to take advantage of
opportunity, is critical. As conservatives, we need to be fiscal realists. We must acknowledge
that an agenda for black progress is going to cost money.
In addition to empowerment through capacity building, there are things we can do now to
increase economic empowerment and limit dependency. Tenant management in public
housing is one such action item for our agenda. So also is expanding the equity stake
through home ownership of public housing.
It is time for the second great civil rights movement. Our Constitution guarantees equal
rights, but not equal results. If we wish, as conservatives, to build inroads into black
America, we can do so by delivering results. By concentrating on business development,
business ownership, and home ownership, we can help build black America.
The question for us today is whether we wish to be relevant to black America.
It is a question we must answer soon.
16
Time is running out on us.
Not because black America will explode, but because we may soon become irrelevant to
it.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, America is on its way to a work force crisis.
In a study last year, a commission chartered by Secretary Ann McLaughlin to explore
America's preparedness for economic competition in the coming decade confirmed that
due to demographic trends we are on the way to a labor shortage and a skill shortage in our
work force.
Such a skill and worker shortage will force a response. Business and employers will
demand it, and government will provide it. But will it be a conservative, Republican
response?
Or will it be another Democratic response?
If we choose the way of Senator Goldwater, with all respect, I submit we'll be waiting for
the awakening while the Democrats lay some pontoon bridges and race right past us as we
stare across the gulf separating us from black Americans and wonder what happened.
I'd like to conclude with some thoughts provoked by a recent interview with James
Fallows. Fallows was President Carter's senior speechwriter. He recently returned from
living several years in Asia, including Japan, and was interviewed by Ken Adelman for the
Washingtonian.
What struck me in Fallows's words were his remarks about the naive uniqueness of the
American social vision - the concept that many different peoples from all over the world
can come together in one country and build a vigorous, successful society.
Alien Idea. Fallows notes how alien that idea is to most of the world, especially to Asia.
He says that racism in many other societies blinds them to the concept that we take for
granted, the notion that men are equal, that people of different heritages can not only live
together harmoniously, productively, but in fact with greater accumulated energies and
vibrancy of spirit than would be conceivable in a homogenous society.
Fallows has returned to America worried about the fragility of this unique vision. And,
befitting a speechwriter who worked for a President who delivered the "Malaise" speech,
he is worried about our ability to live up to that unique promise that is America.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is no secret that some in Japan believe their racial homogeneity
to be a virtue, and our diversity to be a hindrance. Japanese leaders have said, and
apologized for, as much.
The fact is the rest of the world does look on the state of black America with
bewilderment about what that says about the soul of this great county, which promises so
much, but leaves out so many.
Essential Premise. We as conservatives must put at risk our national prestige, our
national heritage, and our national competitiveness. With an agenda for black progress, we
can not only build bridges that will be to our own political benefit, but we can restore to the
world the essential premise of America:
That free people, with economic freedom and limited government,
will always thrive;
17
That the human spirit breathes with the same yearning no matter what
one's skin color;
That ability and talent deserve nurturing wherever they are found, and
not just in the privileged classes, whether defined by party label as
with Djilas, or social and economic power.
18
Is the Black Community a Casualty of the War on Poverty?
By Robert L. Woodson, Sr.
About four days ago I was the guest of a group of black legislators in Milwaukee. When I
got off the plane, a gentleman about my age greeted me. After a ten-minute search for his
car, he finally acknowledged that he couldn't find it because he had left his glasses at home.
"I guess you could say I'm blind and vain," he confessed.
And that's true with far too many of us who have been engaged in the civil rights move-
ment. We have been blind, but we have also been vain. We must now discard the vanity in-
duced by the nobility of our struggle and find the courage to embrace a new honesty in as-
sessing its legacy. So what I have been trying to do within the black community is to stimu-
late a return to our rich tradition of debate as to the nature and course of post-civil rights
change.
Historically, there were always active currents of debate within the black community.
From the time of slavery up until the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., voices of many
persuasions were heard as we sought to shape our destiny as black Americans. Since then
there has been little or no substantive debate. We have allowed our dynamic diversity of
thought to be muted into a predictable monolith.
A brief historic review of major currents of debate among blacks will provide an ap-
propriate perspective. During the period of slavery, there were "insurrectionists," who
believed that we should use violence as a means of achieving our rights. Then there were
the "accommodationists," who felt just as strongly that we should try to seek justice and
rights within the American context.
In the decades preceding the Civil War, many enslaved blacks thought the road from
bondage to dignity led back to their African homeland and became "re-colonizationists,"
championing a return to meccas of resettlement such as Sierra Leone and Liberia. At the
same time, other blacks vigorously protested against the idea of leaving a country being
built on the backs of their free labor and cast their lot with the "abolitionists" and others
working to dismantle the system of slavery.
Working Within the System. Following Emancipation, the turn-of-the-century years were
characterized by vigorous dialogue between pre-eminent black leaders of the day such as
Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. While the militant Douglass and the
younger, more conservative Washington both promoted economic self-sufficiency for newly-
freed blacks, they differed on the extent to which their goals could be achieved within the
existing system.
As the century progressed, Washington's gospel of black entrepreneurship and industrial
training was challenged by yet another outstanding black thinker, W. E. B. DuBois, who
espoused the concept of the "Talented Tenth," an intellectual elite of social scientists and
humanists who would create a black technocracy. DuBois thus set forth for generations of
Robert L. Woodson, Sr., is President of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, Washington, D.C.
He spoke at The Heritage Foundation on February 6, 1990, as part of a lecture series observing Black History
Month.
ISSN 0272-1155. ©1990 by The Heritage Foundation.
black Americans educational achievement as a vehicle for integration and acceptance into
the mainstream of American society.
But it was not until the emergence of Marcus Garvey that dialogue within the black com-
munity generated a mass movement. Tapping into the disillusionment of urban blacks fol-
lowing the first World War, Harlem-based Garvey glorified the African past as a source of
pride and self-respect, and by the mid-20s, the "Back-to-Africa" rallying cry of his Univer-
sal Negro Improvement Association had attracted nearly a million followers.
While there were many black voices of dissent during this period, Garvey succeeded in
putting together one of the most effective national grass roots movements in the history of
this country - an accomplishment unparalleled even today.
Rich Debates. What clearly emerges from an examination of our past, however cursory, is
that there were indeed rich debates within the black community about the course of change.
They took many forms and produced varying results. But monumental figures like Douglass,
Washington, DuBois and Garvey offer compelling evidence that true leadership is not
defined by one's ability to reflect popular opinion, or the consensus of the most vocal
majority. Rather, leadership is and should be defined as a willingness to challenge popular
opinion and the consensus in order to shape a new future.
In more recent times, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. demonstrated repeatedly that he was a
man who believed in challenging the traditional wisdom. While Dr. King is best known for
his stirring "I Have a Dream" speech, I remember him for his earlier "Letter from Birmin-
gham Jail," an insightful document in which he warned that the greatest stumbling block to
black progress was not the white Citizens Council or the Ku Klux Klan, but the white
moderate. He said that lukewarm acceptance and understanding from people of goodwill
was more difficult to tolerate than outright rejection from those of ill will.
It is no secret that many of those in the (civil rights) leadership of the day were very criti-
cal of Dr. King. After all, the impact of his statements and actions could shut off some of
their financial support. So they preferred to keep quiet about such things.
Thirty years ago today, four college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, challenged
the traditional civil rights approach of seeking legal redress when they went to a segregated
lunch counter in Woolworth's and engaged in the first sit-in. This incident subsequently
drew the entire movement into the use of civil disobedience as a tactic.
Now Dr. King was not an advocate of civil disobedience in the early years. But the stu-
dents said to him, "Dr. King, you must either lead, follow, or get out of the way." Like the
born leader that he was, he took his place at the front of the pack and directed that phase of
the movement as well.
Tension with the Leadership. But there was always tension between Dr. King and the
civil rights leadership in Atlanta because they believed we should seek only legal redress for
our ills. So when he came to Birmingham and was jailed for his defiance of a state court in-
junction against further demonstrations, it was the young people who came to him and sup-
ported civil disobedience. Not the elders. Not the established religious leaders of the time.
We must not forget that Dr. King also displayed another great hallmark of a leader: his
positions on the issues were always morally consistent. While he opposed the violence of
the Klan, he also opposed the retaliatory violence of militant elements such as the Black
Panther Party. He realized that it was essential that the movement maintain a consistent
posture.
20
When Dr. King took his stand against the war in Vietnam, I remember being on a podium
with Roy Wilkins (then head of the NAACP), who soundly castigated Dr. King for bringing
the peace movement together with the civil rights movement. But Dr. King prevailed and
the entire nation was led.
Permanent Underclass. Since the death of Dr. King, however, there has been no creative
tension to spark open and honest debate within the black community. As a consequence, we
have seen a trillion dollars expended over the last 25 years on programs to aid those who
were left behind by the civil rights movement. And yet we are told that one-third of black
America is in danger of becoming a permanent underclass.
Blacks now have political control of eight of the twelve major cities in the United States.
But even in those cities, poor blacks are no better off than they were under white control.
So if political empowerment, the passage of civil rights laws, and a proliferation of high
price-tag poverty programs have not yielded the promised benefits, what should we do? Has
the black community, in truth, been a casualty of the war on poverty?
And that is the subject that I would like to address this afternoon. But let's re-phrase the
question. How do we achieve victory in a war that we have won? Let me repeat that - how
do we achieve victory in a war that we have won?
In order for those of us in the black community to answer this question, we must first un-
derstand that it is most important to be self-critical. As Dr. King said, the highest expression
of the maturity of any people, or an individual, is the ability to be self-critical.
As a person who went to jail and fought hard in the civil rights movement, I unequivocally
affirm my commitment to that movement. But I must also affirm my commitment to the
truth: many of those who sacrificed most in the struggle for civil rights did not benefit from
the change. More specificially, poor blacks did not benefit substantially from the civil rights
movement.
When I recently appeared on a national television panel following the release of the
"State of Black America" report by the National Urban League, I called it "a litany of
despair about how bad off we are." I was then asked for my perspective on the state of black
America. For the blacks on this show, I pointed out, life ain't been too bad. And it has never
been too bad for those of us who were prepared to walk through the doors of opportunity
when they were opened. Regardless of who is in the White House, our incomes have im-
proved every year for the past twenty years.
Equipped Differently. In order to move in new directions, we must disaggregate this prob-
lem and stop attempting to apply a single solution. We are insulted when whites say that all
blacks think, look, and act alike. So why should we impose this on ourselves?
Black Americans must recognize that even though all of us might have been caught in the
storm of racism and discrimination together, we were equipped differently to address that
condition. Some of us had overcoats, boots, and hats on our heads while others were naked.
And that's why there cannot be a consistent response from the black community.
We must, first of all, understand why the civil rights movement, political empowerment,
and the passage of civil rights laws have all failed to address the needs of low income blacks.
The answer to that question is critical not only to the future of black America, but to the fu-
ture of this nation.
21
If we are to remain competitive as a country, we will have to rely upon a work force
drawn up primarily of blacks and Hispanics. According to current demographic trends, the
number of whites being born is declining as the number of black and Hispanic people is in-
creasing. With a projected 15 million new jobs in the economy in the next twenty years, cor-
porate America will have to look increasingly to those groups.
But if 800,000 young black and Hispanic kids are dropping out of school each year and
another 800,000 are graduating as functional illiterates with poor work skills, America is
headed for trouble.
Better in Bangladesh. The shocking fact is that a black man's chances of survival in Har-
lem are less than they would be if he was a resident of Bangladesh, the poorest country on
the face of this earth. More than 10,000 blacks are killing one another each year, more than
the total number of blacks killed in the nine years of the Vietnam war. Thousands of blacks
and Hispanics are dying each year because of the chances that they take and the choices
that they make in lifestyles characterized by violence, disease, poor health habits and other
life-threatening behavior.
These issues must be addressed, not only for reasons of compassion, but for our national
survival. When you consider that our military forces will also be drawn from among these
minority groups, our national security is also strategically involved.
And so we have got to be absolutely self-critical in acknowledging the mistakes we made
as a community in the single minded pursuit of civil rights. What we fail to understand is
that while the Supreme Court removed social segregation, it left economic Jim Crow laws
in place.
Intense Competition. Clint Bolick is one of the few scholars who has gone back and
traced the origins of this economic discrimination. In Clint's book, Changing Course, he
talks about the manpower shortage which existed following the Civil War in 1865. Thus the
blacks who were freed from slavery at the time entered the work force. Those who had
gained skills as craftsmen began to set up small businesses. And others began to contract
their labor to plantation owners. There was intense competition, so for a very brief period,
wages began to soar in a free market environment.
But plantation owners, seeking to exercise control, came together informally to form a
cartel. As with most cartels, people began to break the rules, so that the competition
remained intense. The white plantation owners then asked the state to impose laws limiting
the economic activities of blacks. The result was a repressive spate of vagrancy laws, licens-
ing laws, and entry fees. Business licenses could be withdrawn if it was believed that the
proprietor was of ill repute. In fact, the state imposed all kinds of restrictions - - many of
them arbitrary.
Fourteenth Amendment Protections. In 1866, Congress responded by passing the first
Civil Rights Act, which granted citizenship to slaves, and stipulated that cases against them
were to be tried in federal court. But President Andrew Johnson vetoed it because he said it
was unconstitutional for the federal government to impose its will on the states. But in
1868, the 14th Amendment was passed, guaranteeing equal protection and due process and
the privilege of immunity, which meant that there were certain rights that the states could
not take away from individuals.
However, in 1872, there was a case in Louisiana that is rarely referenced by civil rights ad-
vocates. And that is the now infamous Slaughterhouse case. In the parishes of Louisiana,
22
slaughterhouses were consolidated into a monopoly for legitimate health reasons, and many
people were driven out of business. As in any monopoly, corruption and high entry fees
prevailed. Subsequently, some of the butchers that were forced out of business filed a law-
suit.
"Jim Crow" Laws. The case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the states could
not restrict the individual's right to participate in economic activities. Thus the slaughter-
house law opened way for the reinstitution of the "Black Codes" that were later called "Jim
Crow" laws.
There were four principal features of the Jim Crow laws. First, they limited the ability of
black laborers to change employers. Second, they made it unlawful to be unemployed, even
for a temporary period of time. Third, they restricted the labor recruiters coming in from
the North and other places to recruit blacks. They were arrested on the streets by the police
for trying to sign up blacks for jobs that were available in other cities or other regions. So if
a black quit his job in order to take a job in another place and went home to pack his bags,
he could be arrested as a vagrant. Fourth, they allowed blacks who were in prison for their
debts to be turned over to employers to work off their obligation.
As a consequence of Slaughterhouse, these laws quickly extended to the social agenda.
One result was rampant segregation in public accommodations.
Strength from Adversity. Yet even in the face of these tremendous barriers, between
1889 and 1920, blacks persevered and many prospered. For example, there was segregation
in public transportation. So in 24 towns and cities in the South, blacks engaged in the first
bus boycott. Later, they set up their own alternative transit systems, which became thriving
enterprises owned and operated by blacks. The state responded by imposing arbitrary licens-
ing laws which drove those companies out of business.
But the black community gained strength from this adversity. When whites refused to
lend us money, blacks established over 103 banks and savings and loans associations. When
whites refused to treat us in hospitals or to train us in medical schools, blacks established
230 hospitals and medical schools around the country.
When a thousand blacks were fired on the docks of Baltimore for striking, they did not
march on Washington and demand jobs, peace, and freedom. What they did was establish
the Chesapeake Main Dry Dock and Railroad Company and successfully operated their
own railroad for 18 years.
There were over 1,021 inns and hotels operated in black communities. As late as 1958, I
can remember the Carver and Calvert Hotels in Miami - first-class hotels where blacks
could go and enjoy outstanding accommodations.
Entrepreneurial Tradition. So there was indeed a rich tradition of entrepreneurship and
business development in the pre-integration black community that has been very carefully
documented by a young man named John Sibley Butler at the University of Texas in Austin.
And I encourage The Heritage Foundation to invite John Butler here because he has spent
five years of his life going back down South and collecting this valuable data.
A focus of his research has been on Durham, North Carolina, known as the "Black Wall
Street" in the 1920s. During the Depression, blacks did not suffer in Durham the way they
did in other parts of the country because their rich entrepreneurial experience enabled
them to establish many self-help organizations, including political groups.
23
Today, Durham's 50-year-old political organization has as its chairperson a Republican,
with the vice chair a Democrat. Why? Because they want both Democrats and Republicans
to come to them solely on the issues. Then they will throw their support behind the can-
didate who brings the most compelling case to the table. Compare this to the kind of trap
that blacks have gotten themselves into by voting for Democrats whether the party delivers
anything or not. In Durham, such blindness does not exist.
John Butler's research also revealed that there is an intrinsic value in entrepreneurial be-
havior that transcends gross business receipts. He found that 63 percent of blacks that are
third-generation college graduates come from this group of entrepreneurs. He found that
even in running a grocery store or a mom-and-pop shop, certain values are communicated
to the children so that they tend to go on to college.
Every time I speak to a group of professional blacks and ask how many are third-genera-
tion college graduates, they raise their hands. Then I ask how many of their parents owned
businesses and the same group raises its hands. Not all blacks come from poverty.
Social Benefits. John Butler himself, who is a third generation Ph.D., comes from a family
that owned a lot of land in Louisiana. They had servants at the turn of the century. When
John was on a panel down South, he appeared with a white mayor and a white president of
the city council, and they were all asked about their backgrounds. The white mayor said that
he came from a family of sharecroppers and told his hard luck story. And the white presi-
dent of the city council said he came from a farm family, and it was tough growing up. And
John looked and both of them and said, "Well, Mother wouldn't have let me play with y'all
because we were always doing well." The point is that a rich entrepreneurial tradition reaps
measurable social benefits.
John Butler has also examined the implications of this emphasis on entrepreneurship and
economic development on the plight of blacks today. He went back to Durham and com-
pared the wealth of blacks there with the wealth of blacks in Chicago. He found that 40
thousand blacks in Durham today control more wealth than a million blacks in Chicago.
Now this is not because white folks are fairer to blacks in Durham than they are in Chicago.
It has more to do with their relative economic standing.
We must understand that the issue today is less a matter of race than economic develop-
ment. Of course racism continues to be a problem, but it is certainly not the most important
issue that we are facing as a people.
Response to Racism. As a child, I remember reading about how Jewish folks responded
to signs on Miami Beach which read: "No Jews or dogs allowed." There was no picketing.
Jews simply bought the beach. The same is true with the Trainmore Hotel, a large hotel in
Atlantic City where we used to go in the summer. They didn't permit Jews and blacks in
there either. No picketing. In less than three years, Jews owned the hotel. There is no need
to worry about access to accommodations or equal employment opportunity when you own
it.
Black America took important first steps toward this level of economic independence
with the Eldorado Hotel, one of the largest hotels situated in the middle of Manhattan. In
the early 1950s it was owned by the United House of Prayer, a black church. (Even though
blacks couldn't go there, they benefited through the revenues generated.)
Similarly, a hosiery manufacturing company in Durham became so prosperous that they
hired white sales persons and had wide national distribution. It was a black-owned and
24
-operated company, yet they had to use white sales personnel because they knew they
couldn't send blacks into the white stores. In fact, many of these black-run businesses
catered exclusively to whites. But it was purely an economic decision dictated by the times.
Although the Supreme Court struck down social barriers in the 1950s and 1960s, it left in
place the restrictive legacy of the old licensing and Slaughterhouse laws that continue to this
day to deny blacks an opportunity to participate freely in the market economy. So it is im-
portant to understand that there were other problems key to our survival that we never ad-
dressed in the civil rights movement.
It is essential that we distinguish between segregation, integration and desegregation. As
an active participant in the civil rights movement, I fought against segregation. I fought
against laws and policies legally limiting my activities, or my access to any place I wanted to
live or to work.
Schizophrenic Thinking. But what I fought for was pluralism; I did not fight for integra-
tion. And that is where we made a fundamental mistake. By using the terms "integration"
and "desegregation" synonymously, we sowed the seeds of a pattern of schizophrenic think-
ing that continues to exist in the black community today.
At the same time some blacks are saying that whites are conspiring to eliminate blacks
genocidally, other groups of blacks are filing lawsuits in the courts demanding that those
same whites teach their children. Now there is something wrong and schizophrenic about
that. But I say it is more of a class issue than a race issue.
In 1974, Judge W. Arthur Garrity was faced with the question of what he should do about
the problems of segregation in the Boston school system, and he did a very informed thing.
Judge Garrity went to the black community, whose children were being directly affected,
and asked them what they wanted. After community meetings were held, the parents con-
cluded that their priority was quality education, not integration by busing. They wanted
their children to learn and to be first-rate citizens. Well, the civil rights lawyers, both black
and white, arrogantly advised Judge Garrity to set aside the views, opinions, and desires of
those low-income blacks and ordered the schools to bus anyway. Not one of the attorneys,
black or white, had his children on the buses. But they insisted that children be bused. And
when the stones were thrown, their children were not around.
The children in Boston were bused from Roxbury High to the south Boston area that had
a lower number of white graduates going on to college. In some places, the light fixtures
were hanging from the wall. One white parent said to a black correspondent for CBS news,
"Sure, bring your kids into this school and they will graduate just as dumb as our children."
And yet the leadership of the time persisted in pressing the whole issue of busing.
Funding the Poverty Industry. It is the same with the poverty programs. Seventy cents of
every dollar spent 25 years ago went directly to poor people. Today, seventy cents of every
dollar goes not to poor people, but to those who serve poor people - the poverty industry.
Who makes up the poverty industry? They are middle-income blacks and middle-income
whites.
And so what you have today is a situation in which there is a group of people who benefit
from the existence of an underclass. And as long as there are such perverse incentives for
the maintenance of an underclass, you will have one.
The new consensus that we are trying to forge in this country is to bring together people
who have compatible interests. The corporate community desperately needs well-trained
25
people for its businesses in order to be competitive in the future. The black community at
the grass roots level desperately needs to engage in enterprise formation because 80 per-
cent of all new jobs in the American economy are generated by the start up of small busi-
nesses. What is important is the creation of wealth by people at this level.
Therefore, what we are trying to do is bring about a marriage between the interests of
American business and the folks here in those low-income communities who have
demonstrated that they can improve the civil environment, throw the drug pushers out,
reduce teenage pregnancy, and motivate young people to stay in school. They are doing this
without elaborate budgets or programs because they understand that they have to engage
young people at the spiritual, ethical, and moral level, and challenge them to be more than
they are.
Moral and Spiritual Challenge. But you never hear urban policy analysts talking about
the moral and spiritual dimension of social change. As I look around the country, the
people who are making a difference in the lives of these young people, who get the needles
out of their arms, who get the young women not to have babies - don't do so because they
have better programs. They do so because they challenge young people morally and
spiritually become what they can, and what God intended them to be.
But too many of our policy analysts look down on these innocent efforts. Both conserva-
tives and liberals tend to do the same thing. And I am here to tell you that there is new
movement afoot, a grass roots movement of people who understand fully the moral and
spiritual dimension of their condition. And are willing to take responsibility for their own
lives.
You can have all the fancy treatment programs in the world, but the only way things are
going to change is when you convert the hearts of people. And those who are best able to
do that are the people that have a proprietary commitment to doing it, not because they are
being paid by some program. Now I am not against programs. I am merely saying programs
should come at the end of a process of self-liberation that comes from within one's own
moral and spiritual value system.
But it cannot happen when we tell young black kids every day that if they are aggregated
in any group which is all black, then that's a pathogenic environment. Again, it is a class
issue. We refer to low-income blacks coming together as a segregated circumstance. But
when middle-income blacks come together in their all black sororities and fraternities or
churches, both the perception and the language change.
Spirit of Candor. You see, we play games with poor people. I never hear anybody refer to
the Alphas, the Omegas, and the Deltas or AKAs as segregated institutions. I never hear
people referring to black churches as segregated institutions. No, we say they are simply or-
ganizations or congregations of black people.
And in this spirit of candor and self-criticism, we must not allow our leadership to lose its
moral conscience as well. When a black United States Congressman accosts a young black
female Peace Corps volunteer on the back seat of a limousine and then defends his actions
in the House of Representatives by charging his accusers of racism, our civil rights legacy is
intolerably dishonored. And those who are silent in the face of this offense are guilty by
complicity.
We can have but one standard of accountability, and that must transcend race. If we don't
want whites to hold us accountable for our actions, then what mechanism do we have inter-
26
nally to hold ourselves accountable? These are the messages that we need to bring to our
people.
And these are some of the solutions that we are pursuing at the National Center for
Neighborhood Enterprise by working with grass roots people, by looking at the glass that is
half full. We believe in studying inventories of capacity because you learn nothing from
studying failure except how to create it.
We are visiting low-income communities all across America to find out what works and
why. We are giving people in these communities the capital and the information they need
to empower themselves, as well as the moral and spiritual support. And then we can bring
them together with those who share that common destiny.
Empowering Those on the Bottom. Our work has political implications, too. I will not per-
mit the Republican Party to extend its influence among blacks by merely reaching out to
the same entrenched civil rights leadership that created the problems in the first place. I
will not let them get away with that. The worst thing in the world is for the Republicans to
reach out to that leadership and give the impression of being more open to blacks, and get-
ting the votes, and then leaving poor blacks and poor whites behind in the wake of their vic-
tories. And poor whites are almost worse off than poor blacks because no one advocates for
them.
In concluding, let me repeat that the issue today is not race, but class. The insistence on
applying race-specific solutions to economic problems has snatched defeat from the jaws of
our civil rights victories. We need to come together as a nation and address the problems of
poverty by empowering those at the bottom. We must give them the opportunity to excel
and participate in the free enterprise system because their destiny and the destiny of this na-
tion depend upon what we do today.
27
The Moral Foundation of the Civil Rights Movement
By The Reverend Buster Soaries
I am so glad to be here in Washington, the city where all the talking takes place. And I
am particularly thrilled and honored to be invited to participate in this lecture series of The
Heritage Foundation in pursuit of expanding our knowledge of African American history.
I am so glad to be here after Bob Woodson. It takes so much pressure off. It doesn't mat-
ter what I say because it has all been said. I am thrilled to be here. It is quite unique to have
been given 30 to 45 minutes to explain. It's been my experience to come to these kinds of
places and be given about 18 minutes to do what any black preacher needs at least 30
minutes to do. I think that's probably why I went to Princeton Seminary. So I could learn
how to preach a good 12 minute sermon. So I can leave my Princeton text behind and bring
my Baptist text with me.
But it is commendable, first, that The Heritage Foundation would see a need to reflect,
along with us, on the legacy of our people and to attempt to add to traditional wisdom with
regard to the meaning and the substance of that tradition. It also is extremely significant
that you would be here, for a lecturer without an audience is like a ship without a sail. I am
deeply appreciative for your taking time from your lunch hour to come and hear what I
have to say.
It was in April of 1968 that I stopped by my grandmother's house on my way home from
school. When I walked into her house I saw her sitting at the dining room table. And I saw
something I had never seen before. I saw my grandmother sitting at the dining room table
and she had tears in her eyes. And I thought to myself, I have never seen my grandmother
cry before.
Grandmother's Emotion. My grandmother grew up through the Depression with eight
children. She was a domestic worker, she made $100 a week working in rich folks' houses
scrubbing floors. Children called her by her first name. But I had never seen my
grandmother cry. Her husband, my grandfather, was an alcoholic. She didn't put him out of
the house, but she put him out of the bedroom. He slept on the porch. He got drunk every
day. I never saw him go to work a day in my life. My mother never saw her father go to work
a day in her life. Yet through all of that pain, we had never seen my grandmother cry.
She had lost two children. She had buried two of her sons. And at the funeral I was as-
tounded by the resilience and the strength of my grandmother. I watched her watch them
lower her babies into the ground. And through it all I never saw my grandmother cry.
And I looked at her and it was so astounding and so unique. My grandmother who had
been strong for all of these years had tears rolling down her cheeks. I approached my
grandmother and asked what could have happened that she would be sitting here all by her-
The Reverend Buster Soaries is the Executive Assistant Pastor of the Shiloh Baptist Church, Trenton, New
Jersey.
Month. He spoke at The Heritage Foundation on February 8, 1990, as part of a lecture series observing Black History
ISSN 0272-1155. ©1990 by The Heritage Foundation.
self in her dining room with tears in her eyes. And she looked back at me, and she said four
words, she said "They shot Dr. King."
And I was confused. Here I was seventeen years old, living in New Jersey, going to
Grandmother's house to get some sweet potato pie. She was sitting at her dining room
table. She had never met Dr. King. She didn't belong to his church. My grandmother wasn't
even Baptist. She was a member of the Church of God in Christ, a high Pentecostal, legalis-
tic black denomination. She didn't even know Dr. King.
Accomodationist Thought. My grandmother wasn't involved in the civil rights movement.
She wasn't a member of the NAACP. My grandmother would never march, go to jail. My
grandmother didn't advocate any kind of protest. My grandmother represented an ac-
comodationist kind of thought: Go to work. Do your job. Stay in your place. My
grandmother wasn't a part of that crowd that supported people like King.
And it was confusing to me. How could my grandmother, this woman who would have
never voted for a candidate who supported abortion; my grandmother, who didn't allow the
TV on Sunday; my grandmother, who was against brazen, brash behavior; who taught
against civil disobedience; my grandmother, who would never enter a church without a hat
on her head -- how could this quiet, conservative mother be so moved at the death of this
rebel-rousing, liberal theologian. It was quite perplexing. Her tears troubled me. As I grew
older and began to study the civil rights movement, I came to understand why my
grandmother was crying on April 4, 1968. And I came to understand the moral foundations
of the civil rights movement.
Those tears took me back to Rosa Parks. You remember Rosa Parks. On December 1,
1955, Rosa Parks was sitting in the middle of the bus, the place where black folks could sit
until so many white folks got on the bus that they had to give up their seats. What really hap-
pened on December 1, 1955? Well, Rosa Parks decided to sit down. But if we read history,
it is clear that much more than that happened.
Parks' Predecessor. Rosa Parks was not the first black woman who decided to sit down.
She wasn't the first woman who resisted the order to surrender her seat for a white person.
As a matter of fact, in that same year, if you read Taylor Branch's account in Parting the
Waters, if you read David Garrow's account in Bearing the Cross, that same year in March of
1955, there was another woman, Claudette Colvin, who did the same thing.
Claudette was sitting in the same section of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. It was the
same year, March 1955. The bus driver stopped and ordered her to get up for a white man
to take her seat. She said, "No." But Claudette Colvin said no in a different way than Rosa
Parks said no.
Rosa Parks was a meek and humble and quiet lady like my grandmother. Claudette was a
different kind of sister. She was the kind of person, I imagine, who when you said move, she
would bow her head and say, "You move me."
Claudette was a tough sister. And as the account goes, Claudette responded with such
profanity and vulgarity that it embarrassed the white folks and the black folks on the bus.
They called the police on Claudette, and they arrested Claudette like they did Rosa Parks.
And they called the black leadership in Montgomery. The same black leadership that met
later that year and organized the bus boycott.
And when they called the black leadership in Montgomery in March they called A.D.
Nixon. And he called the other leaders and they got together to decide what to do. They had
30
been waiting for an opportunity to bring down the oppressive regime in Montgomery,
Alabama. Now they had an example of how bad this situation was:
A young black woman riding on the bus refuses to get up. They arrested her and took her
to jail.
Wrong Symbol. The black leadership of Montgomery, Alabama made a decision. They
decided to advise sister Claudette to pay her fine. They advised her that because her lan-
guage and her behavior had been so boisterous and vulgar, she didn't represent the kind of
person that the community of Montgomery could use as a symbol.
Claudette Colvin also was pregnant and unmarried. And the black leaders of
Montgomery decided that a woman with a vulgar tongue and who was bearing a child out of
wedlock, was not the proper symbol around which to organize a movement for justice. And
later, the same year, in the same city, on the same bus line, one Rosa Parks had the same
problem.
Now when you say "Rosa Parks," no one says "Who was that?" But when you say
"Claudette Colvin" nobody knows who she was. What was the difference between Rosa
Parks and Claudette Colvin?
Rosa Parks went to work every day. Rosa Parks was the loving wife of brother Parks.
Rosa Parks went to church every week. Rosa Parks was the secretary of the NAACP. Rosa
Parks represented the kind of moral character around which a community of conscience
could gather. Not simply because she had rights, but because she was right. And so I then
understood my grandmother's tears. Those tears on April 4, 1968 began for me a quest to
know how it was that these people, these sons and daughters of slaves, these people who
had been brought from the south to north by their owners and made domestic workers, how
it was these people had such a deep abiding faith, and had almost a legalistic commitment
to morality, but at the same time in their hearts had a great concern for justice. Through the
tears of my grandmother and the symbol of Rosa Parks, God developed a window through
which I could see this dual quest among black Americans for moral excellence and social
justice. That moral excellence, moral strength, and moral principles have been the founda-
tion of black life in America is irrefutable. Moral strength has always been seen in the black
community as divine responsibility. Henry Mitchell, an expert on black preaching, wrote a
book called Soul Theology. And this book, Soul Theology, is not to be confused with libera-
tion theology or black theology.
Theistic World View. Soul theology asserts that African culture created fertile ground
among African slaves for Christian beliefs; that the African world view was such that when
Africans came to American there was enough in Christianity that coincided with that world
view that we readily adopted the Christian faith.
And one of those cultural values was that Africans had a theistic world view. So, to talk
about a God beyond what we can see was compatible with African notions of reality. Life
beyond death, and the concept of divinity permeated the psyche of African slaves. And that
reality, then, suggested that Africans, and then African Americans, had this psyche that God
is real and that God has expectations.
And so when we look at the church, the sociological perspective of our religious ex-
perience is that because blacks were oppressed and rejected and denied access to the
greater society, the black church became, in the words of E. Franklin Frazier, "a kind of sur-
31
rogate world." And that is true. The black church became the nation within a nation, a cul-
ture within a culture.
The black church, to the extent that humans need one, provided a kind of communal eros.
That there was a loving community within a hostile world.
Staying in Touch With God. The church also was the connection through which people
made contact with God. To suggest that the black church has always been simply a protest
meeting, a political party, or a cultural phenomenon is to misread history. And it is a shal-
low analysis. People were attempting to stay in touch with God. And that contact had politi-
cal implications: It's hard to believe that you can talk to God, and then assume that you are
only three-fifths a human. It's hard to believe that you can speak to the Shaper of the
heavens and the earth and believe, then, that you are inferior to other people who have the
same access. Thus, African Americans viewed moral strength within the context of a theistic
world view. And that world view became personified in the affirmation of the biblical view
of humanity. For example, Genesis 1:26 says that God speaking to the Trinity said, "Let us
make man in our own image." And black folk believed that. That to the extent that there is
a God, each of us, in spite of our color, had a little bit of that God in us. That came from the
Bible.
Psalms 8:2 said that God had a pecking order in terms of what he created. And it said that
God created people a little lower than angels. Unless anybody has met an angel, every other
human is equal.
The biblical view of humanity extended from the Old Testament tradition to the New Tes-
tament tradition when Galatians 3:28 said that, "In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek,
male nor female, bond nor free." And so while Europeans were trying to figure out if the
Bible was truly the word of God, Africans were affirming themselves on southern planta-
tions saying, "We are somebody because we are God's children."
And the social dimension of that had serious implications because we assumed that since
God considered all people equal, we should not be treated otherwise. Our social protests,
our slave rebellions, and our desire to be free, therefore, had their roots and their founda-
tions in our understanding of God's will.
Personal Responsibility. But the African American understanding of God's will did not
simply have social implications. It also had implications for our own understanding of and
commitment to personal responsibility. For God is right when God says, "Moses go down
and tell Pharaoh to let my people go." And God is also right when God tells Moses to tell
the people, "Y'all let Pharaoh go too." Of course, the challenge for Israel was to get out of
Egypt. But then the secondary challenge, which took forty years, was to get Egypt out of
them.
The challenge was a political challenge. But it was a political challenge with a spiritual
and moral goal. Egypt wasn't automatically bad. Egypt was bad because it violated God's
purpose and plan for Israel.
And when black Americans picked up on that paradigm, they understood that, on the one
hand, they had the responsibility to rise above the shackles of slavery, that was Egypt. But
on the other hand, we needed to expunge the degenerate ways of Egypt from our hearts.
That was sin.
And, therefore, the black-church experience became one of strict fundamentalism, strict
biblicism, and strict adherence to moral principles based on our understanding that there is
32
a God, and God has a will which says a part of that will is thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not
kill, thou shalt keep the Ten Commandments.
Thus moral strength and moral principles and mandates emerged from our sense of
theism and our understanding of God.
Moral strength was also a strategy to achieve personal and social freedom.
Before I left home, as a child, my mother would always insist that I wore the right under-
wear. I could never figure out my mother's preoccupation with underwear and socks. And
though I didn't have the right to question much, I said, "Well, Mother, what is it about this
underwear thing? Why is that your concern that my underwear have no holes, my socks
have no holes?" And then she would even confuse me more and say, "Well, if you ever have
an accident, and they take you to the hospital, when they undress you they won't see any
holes in your underwear." And my question of course, was why, if I had an accident, would
my mother's concern be what others thought about my underwear.
Deserving Justice. But my mother's concern flowed from a tradition that said what the
larger society thinks about you is important. In this way, moral strength and moral character
in the history of the black experience have always been understood to be a strategy. Be-
cause to the extent that we were morally strong, to the extent that we were not corruptible,
to the extent that we were clean on the inside and the outside, to the extent that our creden-
tials were impeccable both educationally, intellectually and spiritually, we could demand
justice because we would deserve it.
The whole sense of morality is right at the core of the freedom movement and the civil
rights movement. Because to the extent that Rosa Parks was a fine woman, to the extent
that she was a credible woman, to the extent that she was a faithful woman, to the extent
that she was a hard-working woman, to the extent that she was a civic-minded woman, then
and only then, could the discrimination in Montgomery be attacked based upon her inci-
dent.
Moral strength was a strategy from the Frederick Douglasses of this world to the Harriet
Tubmans of this world, to the Martin Luther Kings of this world. Their message was, "We
must defy these rumors where people say we are uncivilized. We must defy these rumors,
we must be living testimonies that what folks say about us is wrong." That is the tradition of
black America.
This is what our churches preached and taught, even before the revivalist movement. The
revivalist movement of the 19th Century gave us some reenforcement from our white
brothers. But even before the revival movement churches preached against drunkenness
and gambling and prostitution and dancing and swearing and illegitimate births. Black chur-
ches stood for that, and when folks strayed, they were embarrassed. They were never
glorified for wayward behavior.
Normative Values. If a person was walking down the street drunk and swearing, his whole
family would be embarrassed. If a child got pregnant out of wedlock, they would send that
child somewhere where folk didn't know her until she came back. The virtues that were
preached were industry and thrift and patience, what we might call today the Protestant
work ethic. This was normative in our community, preached in our churches from our pul-
pits in the 18th and 19th centuries.
If you don't believe me, Bishop J.W. Hood, the great AME Zion bishop, gave a speech in
1896 to the general convention of the AME Zion church. Here's what he said, "The race,
33
our race, has been charged with ignorance, immorality, indifference, and disregard for the
marriage vows. We deny the false and slanderous accusations against the virtue of our
women, the manhood of our men, and we speak from personal knowledge of the moral and
social condition of the people. And we affirm that the ideals of the leaders of our people
our as high as the ideal of life of their neighbors. And their practical life is more in harmony
with the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, the life of the Man of Sorrows and the
humble Nazarene than those bearing false witness against their neighbors without any per-
sonal knowledge of the charges alleged."
Climate of Expectations. Bishop Hood described black America as having higher moral
standards than even those who described us as being uncivilized. Bishop Hood affirmed the
priority placed on personal morality. And so Dr. Hood and ministers like him in the 19th
century, set the stage for people like Rosa Parks in the 20th century so that there was a
climate of expectations. There was a common understanding that we must reserve the right
to inspect the personal integrity of the victim before we cry justice, even to the oppressors.
Even Dr. King, at the march on Washington - in those sections that received the least at-
tention - said, "I have a dream that one day my four little children will live in a country
where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Which means that even King, in his most famous speech, in one of his most famous lines,
held in balance rather than in tension, the need to have a right to just and fair society and
the responsibility of moral character.
As I travel around the country speaking to young people, the question that I raise is this.
If you don't want to be judged by the color of your skin, what is the content of your charac-
iter? For some people, when they sell drugs to little children, when they ride by and shoot
other people on the street, when they rape women in Central Park, they would be better off
judged by the color of their skin because they have no character.
Throughout history, black preachers never used slavery as an excuse to justify negative be-
havior. You can't find one sermon where a black preacher in the 18th or 19th century said,
"Well, I know you folks have been slaves, so drink all you want. I know that it's been tough.
It was hard coming over on the slave ship, so make as many babies as you want." You will
never find one black leader justifying immoral behavior, anti-social behavior, self-destruc-
tive behavior by using slavery as a rationale. And they were on the back steps of slavery.
Whereas now, 200 years after slavery, we are now reverting back and using slavery as an ex-
cuse for the behavior of some people today.
Principles from the Founding. It's quite interesting that when slavery was still legal, the
slaves did not use slavery as an excuse to be non-productive. And so this conservative
propensity of the black leadership in the 18th and 19th centuries caused them to adhere to
the Bible in a literal way. It caused them to take the Constitution seriously when they heard
that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
Even at the pitch fever of protest they would invoke those words to justify their claim.
Black leaders did not ever invoke the words of a Russian revolution. They never invoked
the words of any other movement other than a movement that was Afro-centric, but based
on the principles that had been laid at the founding of this nation.
34
Creative Investment in the Black Community
By Paul L. Pryde, Jr.
A few weeks ago the National Urban League (NUL) released its annual lamentation
regarding the condition of black America. But unlike some of its past reports, this time the
Urban League suggested a way to deal with the problems. The National Urban League
called for a domestic Marshall Plan.
As a black man who has been around for a number of years, I can personally attest to the
fact that this proposal is more than twenty years old. It was originally introduced by the late
Whitney Young, a past president of the League. Now, as I advance in years, I am far from
saying that age ought to disqualify anything or any idea from consideration.
Yet it seems to me that if this proposal could not be enacted when American economic
power and white guilt about the condition of black America were at their zenith, it does not
stand much of a chance of passage today. I do believe, however, that the Urban League is
on to something. And that something is the fact that the biggest problem facing African
American communities today is the lack of investment. But the problem with the NUL
proposal - and I want to address what should be done later on - is that it addresses the
wrong type of investment, financed the wrong way.
Examining the NUL Marshall Plan
The Urban League proposal, the domestic Marshall Plan as it is called, would essentially
be aimed at financing infrastructure. There is nothing wrong with financing infrastructure.
Anybody who has looked at decaying roads, bridges, and highways in this nation's cities
would agree that something needs to be done. But rebuilding infrastructure is not the
strategy for rebuilding black America.
As any economist can tell you - and they agree on very few things, but this is one of them
- the American economy is undergoing a fundamental restructuring as a result of interna-
tional competition and rapidly changing technology. Economists also agree that in order to
meet this competitive challenge, the U.S. economy must have both a high degree of
flexibility and a high degree of productivity.
In other words, the U.S. economy has to be able to produce existing goods with increased
efficiency and it has to be able to produce new goods to replace the goods that become ob-
solete, either technologically or economically. In order for the American economy to
respond in the necessary fashion, increased investment will be needed - investment not in
infrastructure so much, but in human capital. Further, there is a lot of evidence that human
capital investment is the most important type of investment a society can make in its
economic growth and its economic progress.
Paul L. Pryde, Jr., is president of the economic consulting firm, Pryde, Roberts, and Company.
He spoke at The Heritage Foundation on February 14, 1990, as part of a lecture series observing Black History
Month.
ISSN 0272-1155. ©1990 by The Heritage Foundation.
Investing in Human Capital
An economist at the Brookings Institution estimates that 75 percent of the nation's
growth over the last fifty years can be attributed to investments in human capital. Invest-
ment in such human capital as education, training, the GI Bill, and similar types of initia-
tives.
The Office of Technology Assessment, a respected organization, has reported that U.S. in-
ternational competitiveness depends on a highly educated labor force consisting of people
who are going to be able to change jobs seven or eight times in a lifetime. The sort of
society that most economists agree the United States needs to be is one that is highly
productive, which means a lot of people producing more goods more efficiently; and highly
flexible, which means a lot of people being able to invent and create new goods and
produce new ways of producing those goods.
Economic investment, therefore, should focus on workers who can produce those goods -
workers and managers - and their education and training. But investing in inventors and
entrepreneurs also is essential. These are people who are going to develop new economic ar-
rangements and new products and services.
Igniting Entrepreneurship
As a matter or fact, throughout the economic literature there is a general consensus that
entrepreneurship is the engine of economic progress. And as described in a recent book
that Shelly Green and I authored, Black Entrepreneurship in America, it is clear that a
community's economic well-being is heavily dependent on its level of business participa-
tion.
If you look at the data, groups with high levels of business participation have high levels
of income. Groups with low levels of participation have low levels of income. It is true
throughout this country - indeed, the world.
Entrepreneurship, therefore, is essentially the engine that drives economic progress. And
it is a very important form of human capital investment. When you invest in a young com-
pany you are investing in the creative capacity of the founders and the entrepreneurs. The
people that are founding that company are going to produce a new product, a new service,
or a new way of producing old products and services.
Now, one could conclude that the thing to do, then, is just change the Urban League
proposal a little bit and target it to people rather than real estate. However, that would ac-
tually be wrong. The problem is that we have reached the point of diminishing returns with
government-managed programs. There are certain types of investments that just are not ap-
propriate for government. For example, studies show that entrepreneurs get most of their
money, not from government loan programs, but from their friends, family members, and
business associates. Governments do not make good risk-takers. And if you think about it,
those of you who understand public service, it follows that upholding the public trust and
taking risks are often incompatible.
36
Returning briefly to the Urban League proposal. One of the things that it lacks is the
spirit of innovativeness that has characterized the ideas upon which the economic progress
of the African American community is based. If you look back, the leadership of the
African American community, those who have been most important in our progress, have
been the innovators. They have been the Thurgood Marshalls, the Martin Luther Kings, the
Malcolm Xs, the A. Philip Randolphs, the Marcus Garveys.
These have been people who have recognized that, essentially, the African American
community has got to use its own resources to solve its problems. They didn't eschew
government help, but looked to government to create conditions under which African
Americans, black Americans, themselves, could solve their problems. We need to return to
that sort of innovative spirit.
An Appropriate Role for Government
I have had the fortunate - some would say unfortunate - experience of having helped
design some government loan programs. Invariably, with these programs, a couple of things
happen. If you make a loan to somebody and the loan goes bad, you are accused of making
a loan that wasted taxpayers money. The critics will claim that anybody should have known
better than to make such a bad deal.
On the other hand, if you make a loan to somebody and the fellow makes a lot of money,
or the company makes a lot of money, then you are accused of making a loan that a com-
mercial banker should have made. The critics will accuse you of enriching somebody at the
expense of other people who certainly could have used the taxpayers' money more produc-
tively.
Thus, the prudent thing for any public servant to do with a government-financed program
is to do very little at all. Don't make anybody rich, don't lose too much money, and certainly
don't make any money. That is not a formula for economic progress. Rather, the sort of in-
vestment needed must be made by private individuals who have a stake in the success of the
companies that they finance.
There are other types of investments that also are not appropriate for government. The
decision to invest time, which is key to the development of children in our society - with
respect, for example, to spending time on their schoolwork - is a decision that government
can't make for individual families or individuals themselves. Likewise, the decision to invest
in college education is a private decision; it, too, can't be made by government. So, not only
is government becoming less and less capable of making important investment decisions,
there are certain decisions they ought to stay out of as a matter of general public consensus
and basic common sense.
Now, it seems to me, if the necessary investment perhaps as much as $50 billion- - is not
going to be financed by government, it has to be financed in another way. I have identified
what I believe are three obvious elements of such an investment plan.
Of course, these strategies are not usually considered investment opportunities. The first
is Social Security reform. Surprising idea, novel notion, but I will explain why I think that it
is important. The second is tax and regulatory incentives to increase savings. And the third
37
is privatization. Those are the three elements that hold the possibility of injecting into the
black community the sort of investment that is really needed.
Reforming Social Security
Let me talk a little bit about Social Security. I am surprised to see that it has become an
issue. But it is a very important issue for African Americans because, according to the Na-
tional Center for Policy Analysis, Social Security is an absolute disaster for blacks. The
reason is that black Americans, generally being low-income, pay a higher percentage of
their income in Social Security taxes than most Americans. And because we die at earlier
ages we receive less in Social Security benefits than other people.
So, if you want to be really negative about it you can say that Social Security is a transfer
from low-income blacks to high-income whites. Now, there is another problem with Social
Security, as everybody has pointed out recently. Surpluses in Social Security are invested in
government bonds, which transfer the burden of financing a lot of government programs
from higher-income people to lower-income people. Not a very good idea. And it is an idea
that a lot of people think is inequitable.
Representative John Porter of Illinois and others have come up with what I think is a
novel and good idea for privatizing Social Security. Over time, they would create worker-
owned retirement accounts that could be invested in the private economy rather than, as is
now the case, in government bonds.
For blacks, there are immediate benefits to the Porter-type plan. One is that instead of
being taxpayers and using Social Security payments only to fund the current benefits of cur-
rent retirees, workers become asset holders. So, immediately you would have an increase in
the wealth of the black community. Presumably, within certain reason, these funds could be
invested in obligations and assets that are important to the black community. For example,
it could be invested in deposits, insured deposits at black banks or other banks, and in-
vested in the black community. They could be invested, for example, in SBA guaranteed
obligations, which are federally guaranteed obligations issued by small companies, and
other sorts of investments that would create additional income and additional jobs in the
black community.
In addition to Social Security reform, there need to be incentives for people to invest
their savings in a certain way. One of my beliefs is that black Americans who have money
behave just like white Americans who have money. That is, they will invest in things that
they would not otherwise invest in only if you give them the incentives to do so. Now, that
might not be smart. It might not be morally right. It may not be the way we would like it to
be. But I am absolutely certain that that's the way it is.
Creating Tax and Regulatory Incentives
Therefore, in addition to Social Security reform, we need tax and regulatory incentives
for people who want to invest in the African American communities. Incentives are needed
for African Americans and others who also want to invest in those communities, to hold
their savings in certain forms. For example, incentives to invest in the stock of companies
that create jobs in poor communities would be a useful strategy.
38
There is a tendency, as I mentioned earlier, for African Americans to want government to
finance most of our development. But it is also a fact that currently there are pension funds
with around $30 billion in assets, most of whose beneficiaries are black. I happened to talk
to a fellow who managed one of those pension funds and I asked him, "You have got about
a $2.4 billion pension plan, 70 percent of whose beneficiaries are black. How much of that
money goes into the black community in the form of investment?" "None," he replied.
"Why?" He never thought of it. Well, I find that appalling.
I recognize that there are laws that say that you cannot put the retirement income of
people at risk by putting them in risky assets. But it seems to me that if you take one per-
cent or two percent of the assets of those pension funds and were to lose it all, the impact
on the overall rate of return on the pension fund would be absolutely negligible. It would
not make a bit of difference. So, we need to create incentives for pension funds and other
sources of wealth that are owned by the black community, but managed by others, to be in-
vested in ways that are productive of economic activity in those communities. Put a little bit
differently, it seems strange to me that a community that is begging for investments, and so
badly needs investment, is a net exporter of its capital. But because of the rules of the game
- the way things are currently structured - we need tax and regulatory incentives to en-
courage us to use our own wealth to create more wealth.
Privatizing Public Services
Finally, the third element of my investment proposal is privatization. Now we all know
large parts of the public sector are inefficient. Services are not nearly as efficient as they
ought to be and they cost a lot more than they should. We also know that blacks are heavily
represented among the management of public services. So, I think we ought to introduce
competition, private competition in the management of public services.
For example, in the area of education, teachers ought to be able to form little cooperative
organizations to manage schools under contract with local government agencies. This ap-
proach has been tried in certain places with some pretty stunning results. And to those who
would say, "Well, that's sort of risky." I would say, "Well, better to risk the possibility of suc-
cess than to continue along a path you know will fail."
Another area in which we ought to be thinking more creatively is privatization of prisons.
One of the largest sources of human capital - underutilized human capital - in this
country is in our prisons. The largest percentage of the prison population is made up of
blacks who are warehoused. At the same time, we have an American society that is not com-
petitive in foreign markets because labor cost is too high. Why shouldn't we be training and
investing in the development of prison labor to produce products that are no longer
produced in the United States and whose production, by prisoners, would not at all jeopard-
ize existing jobs.
Once again, investment of this type can solve a couple of problems. It certainly can help
contribute to a reduction of the foreign payments deficits. And it would certainly reduce the
net cost of prisoners by creating an enormous investment in people who need it very badly.
Now, John Jacobs, current president of the Urban League, when he proposed that we
have a domestic Marshall Plan, spoke of a figure of $50 billion. I have no idea whether
3.9
that's a legitimate number or not. I do know one thing, however. A $50 billion plan - a plan
with a $50 billion number - would not produce a net investment of $50 billion in the black
community. It would likely have to be intermediated through endless politicians and govern-
ment agencies. So we might see $5 billion or $10 billion ending up in assets in the black
community itself.
I recently had an opportunity to read an article by Peter Drucker, who pointed out that
one reason for the Japanese miracle after World War II was that the Japanese government,
in the late forties, instituted a plan under which low-income people, average citizens, could
invest in a tax benefited savings plan.
These savings plans did not pay high interest, but they provided good tax benefits. Thus
they became very popular. And because of the low interest rates they could be re-loaned to
Japanese industry at very low rates of interest. This access to cheap credit, according to
Drucker, helped to create the Japanese miracle.
What I have outlined here is a plan under which Social Security and other public services
would be privatized, where people could invest their accounts and direct them like you
direct an IRA. This effort could result in a source of cheap credit for the development of
the black community. At the very least, if it's good enough for the Japanese, it's good
enough for me.
40
Industry output and employment:
a slower trend for the nineties
Of the 18 million new jobs expected by 2000,
the service-producing sector will dominate,
2/25/91 - Ron Kutcher,
with about half added to retail trade,
Assoc. Commissioner for
health services, and business services
Empl. Projections,
Bureau of Labor Statistics
He says they do projections
Valerie A. Personick
éT
he U.S. economy is projected to add an-
the nineties is a continuation of a trend that
other 18 million jobs by the year 2000, an
started in the late 1970's, as the baby-boom
every other year, so this figure
average of 1.5 million per year from
generation became fully absorbed into the labor
1988. This rate of growth is slower than in the
force. Coupled with the smaller numbers of
is the most recent + accurate.
past, when annual job gains averaged 2.3 mil-
new, young workers during the next decade is
lion over a comparable 12-year period. Slower
the expectation of a slowdown in the rate of
growth is directly tied to the expectation of less
increase of female labor force participation.
labor force expansion over the next decade.
Assumptions about the overall level of eco-
The 18 million new jobs are expected to be
nomic activity, which are also key factors
added primarily in the service-producing sector.
underlying the industry output and employment
In contrast, manufacturing employment is pro-
projections, are in the article by Norman C.
jected to shrink slightly, from 19.4 million in
Saunders on pp. 13-24. Economic growth, as
1988 to 19.1 million at the turn of the century.
measured by real gross national product, is pro-
Among the service-sector leaders, retail trade is
jected to average 2.3 percent a year between
expected to add 3.8 million jobs; private health
1988 and 2000, and the unemployment rate is
services, 3.0 million; and business services, 2.7
projected to be 5.5 percent. Strong gains are
million. Government employment, especially in
especially projected for exports, leading to
public schools and in State and local safety and
strength in the manufacturing sector.
general government functions, is also projected
Three alternative scenarios were projected for
to add about 1.6 million new jobs. Despite these
2000: a base, or moderate case; a low-growth
gains, the rate of growth for all these divisions
alternative; and a high-growth alternative. The
from 1988 to 2000 is much slower than that
data discussed in this article pertain mainly to
between 1976 and 1988.
the moderate case scenario, with a section at the
Total job growth averaged 2.3 percent a year
end describing the low and high projections.
from 1976 to 1988, but is only expected to aver-
age 1.2 percent annually through 2000. Job
Valerie A. Personick is an
Employment in major industries
economist in the Office of
growth parallels the projected growth in the
Employment Projections,
labor force. Details are in the article by Howard
Total employment is projected to rise from 118
Bureau of Labor
N Fullerton on pp. 3-12, but in broad terms, a
million in 1988 to 136 million by the turn of the
Statistics.
slowdown in labor force growth projected for
century. (See table 1.) Most of these jobs, 122
Monthly Labor Review November 1989 25
C
Nov. 28 / Administration of George Bush, 1990
Administration of George Bush, 1990 / Nov. 28
telephone loan risk, and in effect turn con-
Remarks on Signing the Cranston-
I've said before that a cornerstone of our
trol of the program over to the borrowers.
Gonzalez National Affordable Housing
longest, and we stopped doing that. Jack
effort to reduce the heavy hand of govern-
I also note that in enacting amendments
Act
made a significant change there. And
ment is this idea of empowering people, not
now-and even more so with this bill-
to the law governing the Rural Telephone
November 28, 1990
bureaucracies, and giving people-working
we're offering incentives to public housing
Bank Board, the Congress provided that the
people, poor people, everyone-control
members of the Board would exercise man-
Well, thank you all very much for being
tenants who move out and move up into
over their own lives and access to property
the productive economic mainstream.
agement authority "within the limitations
here today. And of course, it's great to be
and jobs so that all Americans can have a
prescribed by law." Consistent with my ob-
with our enthusiastic and effective Secre-
life of dignity, responsibility, and economic
These are the people who will help us meet
tary of HUD [Housing and Urban Develop-
our goal of 1 million new homeowners by
ligation to construe statutory provisions to
opportunity. Secretary Kemp has long been
1992.
avoid raising constitutional questions, I con-
ment], Jack Kemp, who deserves great
a champion of this idea, and that's why I
strue this savings provision to embody the
credit for what we're about to do here. And
have appointed him as Chairman of the Do-
But there's more. This bill contains Home
recognition that those Board members not
of course, I want to salute the Members of
mestic Policy Council's Economic
Investment Partnerships, a new block grant
appointed in conformity with the Constitu-
Congress-they've been so helpful and in-
Empowerment Task Force.
to provide incentives to States, localities,
tion cannot exercise the authority vested by
strumental in this-who are with us today. I
The status quo of centralized bureaucracy
and nonprofit organizations to provide
the Constitution in officers of the United
see Kit Bond, and Al D'Amato was to be-
is not working for the people-the ones
people who currently rent with vouchers,
they're sitting there. And I want to thank,
who need affordable housing; the ones who
tenant-based assistance, and rehabilitation
States.
particularly, the chairmen of the Banking
want to choose the best schools for their
of existing housing, because affordable hous-
I further note that a number of other
Committee, Senator Riegle and Congress-
kids or child care for their younger chil-
ing is in everybody's interest. And in addi-
provisions of the bill could be construed to
man Henry B. Gonzalez, for their work on
dren; the ones who want to pull themselves
tion to housing assistance for migrant farm
vest governmental authority in private par-
this. I'm told that their counterparts, Jake
out of dependency and into a life of self-
workers, the elderly, and the disabled, this
ties. These provisions appear to raise consti-
sufficiency in a safe, clean, and drug-free
legislation also creates the Shelter Plus Care
Garn and Chalmers Wylie, are not with us
tutional concerns, and I am accordingly di-
today, the ranking Republicans on the com-
community. It's the people who have the
Program to assist homeless persons who are
recting the Secretary of Agriculture to con-
mittee; but I also want to thank them for
best answers for themselves and their fami-
mentally ill, who have a drug abuse prob-
sult the Attorney General to consider
their remarkable efforts.
lies, not the Government.
lem or other problems, to give them the
whether curative legislation or other action
I understand that some mayors are in
And that's exactly what the National Af-
support they need to keep them from re-
is needed to ensure that these authorities
fordable Housing Act that about to sign
turning to a desolate life on the streets.
town. Quite a few mayors and other local
are exercised as the Constitution requires.
elected officials are with us, and I want to
here does in several ways: It puts power in
Finally, it reforms certain programs in
the FHA, in the Federal Housing Adminis-
In spite of these drawbacks, on balance I
welcome them to the White House. I'm told
the hands of people. First, it authorizes a
have before me a farm bill that will en-
that Kimi Gray is here, over here. And,
major administration initiative: Homeown-
tration, to make them more financially
Kimi, you're kind of a symbol of hope for
ership and Opportunity for People Every-
sound. The National Affordable Housing
hance the competitiveness of our farmers
and the health of our citizens. My gratitude
the aspirations of a lot of people, and I'm
where, the HOPE Initiative. HOPE will
Act gives people the best kind of govern-
just delighted you're here with us today.
provide new opportunities for low-income
ment assistance: It provides opportunity,
goes to those who have worked so tirelessly
Now, let me start with a story, a bit of
families to buy their own homes-urban
and it encourages responsibility without the
to produce this legislation: concerned citi-
homesteaders, if you will-and helps the
shackles of dependency. And that is really
zens, Members of Congress, and my own
history-1862, the middle of the Civil War.
residents of public housing to buy their own
the American dream, for no matter where
Administration. I look forward to continued
And on May 20th of that year, Abraham
prosperity in the agricultural economy and
Lincoln sat down with pen in hand and
units. Tenant management, control and, ul-
people live or how much money they have,
good health and nutrition for our citizens.
signed into law the Homestead Act of 1862.
timately, ownership of public housing is an
all people yearn to control their own lives.
And that bill gave 160 acres to any family
idea whose time has come. And let me just
Abraham Lincoln knew this, and his vision
This is not a perfect farm bill either from
tell you why.
lives on today as the foundation for our ef-
who wanted to make a go of it in the wil-
my perspective or from that of many Mem-
When the people who live in public hous-
forts to empower all Americans.
derness and reach for the American dream.
bers of Congress. But the vision of all who
ing are in charge, the results are remarka-
And so, it is with that in mind-the undy-
It is one of the most successful endeavors
worked on this legislation is the same: pros-
ble: more people pay their rent, mainte-
ing ideal of hope and opportunity for all-
in American history, causing the great land
perity for our agricultural sector and the
rush to the Wild West and forming the
nance improves, operating costs decline,
that I am pleased to sign this bill into law.
nutritional well-being of our people. The
and crime rates plummet. Employment
And once again, I want to thank each and
vision for a new homesteading program in
bill before me is faithful to our shared
goes up, more kids stay in school, and
every Member of Congress who has worked
urban America today. Because Abraham
vision.
neighborhoods spring back to life. And the
hard on this legislation, particularly the two
Lincoln's Homestead Act empowered
people, it freed people from the burden of
reason? Because each resident simply now
chairmen that are with us today. And of
George Bush
has a stake in society-an equity stake-a
course, again, my respects for his leadership
poverty. It freed them to control their own
chance to make a go of it, to live the Amer-
to Jack Kemp, the Secretary of HUD.
destinies, to create their own opportunities,
ican dream for themselves.
The White House,
Thank you all for joining us today.
and to live the vision of the American
We want public housing to become a
Nov. 28, 1990.
dream. Likewise today, creating the oppor-
And now, if I can lift it up, I'll sign it.
springboard for independence, not a bot-
[Laughter]
tunity for low-income Americans to become
tomless pit for dependency. HUD used to
Note: S. 2830, approved November 28, was
property owners is a key to fighting poverty
be asked to give awards for public housing
and offering real hope to thousands.
Note: The President spoke at 2:05 p.m. in
assigned Public Law No. 101-624.
residents who stayed in public housing the
the East Room at the White House. In his
1928
1929
Nov. 28 / Administration of George Bush, 1990
Administration of George Bush, 1990 / Nov. 28
remarks, he referred to Senators Christopher
HOPE-initiatives that my Administration
ministration's (FHA) single-family mortgage
subsidies, such as rental assistance to poor
S. Bond and Alfonse M. D'Amato, and Kimi
submitted to the Congress earlier this year.
insurance program. These reforms will
tenants.
O. Gray, chairperson of the National Asso-
HOPE represents a dramatic and funda-
ensure that FHA is actuarially safe and fi-
I believe this legislation addresses our
ciation of Resident Management Corps. and
mental restructuring of housing policy. It
nancially sound. The Act's provisions meet
concerns, because it provides for a wide va-
chairperson of the Kenilworth-Parkside
recognizes that the poor and low-income
the four principal objectives of my Adminis-
riety of uses for HOME funds, including
Resident Management Corp. S. 566, ap-
tenants-not public housing authorities and
tration's original FHA reform proposals: the
tenant-based assistance. It also imposes
proved November 28, was assigned Public
developers-are our clients. HOPE will do
achievement of adequate minimum capital
higher State and local matching require-
Law No. 101-625.
what traditional programs have not done:
standards by the earliest possible date; in-
ments for new construction than for tenant-
empower low-income families to achieve
surance premiums that reflect the risk of
based assistance or minor rehabilitation. In
self-sufficiency and to have a stake in their
default; minimum equity contributions by
addition, it requires that 90 percent of
communities by promoting resident man-
borrowers to protect them and the insur-
HOME funds be targeted to families with
agement as well as other forms of
ance fund from default risk; and maintain-
incomes at 60 percent or below the area
Statement on Signing the Cranston-
Gonzalez National Affordable Housing
homeownership.
ing the emphasis of FHA on low- and mod-
median income.
The cornerstone of HOPE is a program to
erate-income homebuyers. With these re-
Unfortunately, this Act also sets aside up
Act
provide grants to enable low-income fami-
forms, we will be ensuring the availability
to 15 percent of total HOME funds in FY
November 28, 1990
lies and tenants to become homeowners.
of FHA for future generations of families
1992 to be used solely for a rental housing
HOPE homeownership grants can be used
seeking to achieve homeownership.
production program. I do not believe that
It is with great pleasure that I today sign
S. 566, the "Cranston-Gonzalez National Af-
for planning activities, including the devel-
I am pleased that this Act contains a solu-
the earmarking of funds for new construc-
tion to the preservation and prepayment
opment of resident management corpora-
tion is consistent with the goal of providing
fordable Housing Act." In addition to ex-
tions. They can also be used for rehabilita-
question that reflects the Administration's
States and localities with maximum flexibil-
tending and reforming existing housing pro-
tion and post-sale subsidies to help ensure
basic principles. These include protecting
ity to meet their specific affordable housing
grams, this Act creates and expands innova-
the success of homeownership. HOPE
project residents from becoming homeless
needs.
tive new programs proposed by this Admin-
as a result of a mortgage prepayment; em-
grants are eligible to be used in public
I am further concerned that this legisla-
istration. These new programs will advance
phasizing alternative prepayment strategies
opportunities for homeownership and eco-
housing and vacant, foreclosed, and dis-
that provide opportunities for homeowner-
tion, in several instances, would relax long-
nomic self-sufficiency in our Nation's most
tressed single-family and multifamily prop-
ship; and honoring the contracts between
standing provisions of current law that pro-
distressed communities. This Act is an excit-
erties.
project owners and the Federal Govern-
vide a preference for housing assistance for
The legislation also includes my Adminis-
those families who are most in need. Al-
ing bipartisan initiative to break down the
ment.
walls separating low-income people from
tration's Operation Bootstrap-or Family
One important preservation strategy is to
though the Federal Government currently
the American dream of opportunity and
Self-Sufficiency-proposal In the past,
provide project owners with economic in-
serves about 4.3 million low-income fami-
homeownership.
public housing was seen as a long-term resi-
centives to maintain their properties for
lies, there are about 4 million additional
I want to note the contributions of sever-
dence for low-income people. My Adminis-
low-income use. I am concerned, however,
families, most of them very low income,
al people to the enactment of this landmark
tration believes that Federal housing subsi-
that the incentives in S. 566 are more gen-
whose housing needs have not been met.
legislation, starting with Secretary of Hous-
dies should serve as transitional tools to
erous than are necessary, providing exces-
We should not divert assistance from those
ing and Urban Development Jack Kemp.
help low-income families achieve self-suffi-
sive benefits over the long term that will be
who need it most.
Secretary Kemp has brought a unique
ciency, move up and into the private hous-
paid by all taxpayers. Nonetheless, I recog-
Several additional provisions warrant
vision to his job and a commitment to
ing market, and join the economic main-
nize that this preservation proposal is a
careful construction to avoid constitutional
empowerment as a tool to encourage indi-
stream. The Family Self-Sufficiency Pro-
compromise and that it represents a good-
concerns. For example, section 302(b)(7) of
vidual dignity and initiative and reward
gram will ensure that all new housing
faith effort by the Congress to meet the
the Act calls on the President to appoint
productive work effort.
voucher and certificate assistance is coordi-
Administration's concern that limited Fed-
one member of the Board of Directors of
Many Members of Congress also made
nated with employment counseling, job
eral funds be provided to those who need
the National Homeownership Trust to rep-
significant contributions to the bipartisan
training, child care, transportation, and
assistance.
resent consumer interests. In light of the
effort to produce a housing bill. A few de-
other services to encourage upward mobili-
This legislation provides a new block
President's power under article II, section 2
serve special recognition. Senators Alan
ty.
grant, HOME Investment Partnerships, to
of the Constitution, I sign this bill with the
Cranston and Al D'Amato have devoted the
S. 566 also authorizes our HOPE for El-
promote partnerships among the Federal
understanding that the individual appointed
last several years to the passage of a com-
derly Independence proposal to combine
Government, States, localities, nonprofit or-
by the President to serve on the Board rep-
prehensive housing bill, and we would not
vouchers and certificates with supportive
ganizations, and private industry. These
resents the United States as an officer of the
be here today without their efforts. Like-
services to assist the frail elderly. In addi-
partnerships will seek to utilize effectively
United States. The requirement that this in-
wise, I want to recognize the efforts of Con-
tion, it authorizes Shelter Plus Care, which
all available resources and a wide variety of
dividual represent consumer interests does
gressmen Henry Gonzalez and Chalmers
couples housing assistance and other serv-
approaches to meet housing needs.
not constrain the President's constitutional
Wylie, whose spirit of cooperation through-
ices to homeless persons with disabilities
My Administration has been concerned
authority to appoint officers of the United
out the legislative process helped bring us
and their families.
that the HOME program not become a ve-
States, subject only to the advice and con-
to this point.
This Act also reflects the efforts of the
hicle for the production of new, federally
sent of the Senate.
S. 566 contains the Homeownership and
Administration and the Congress to enact
subsidized rental housing at the expense of
Section 943(e)(3)(A) provides that the Na-
Opportunity for People Everywhere-
needed reforms to the Federal Housing Ad-
other, more efficient and better targeted
tional Commission on Manufactured Hous-
1931
1930
Nov. 28 / Administration of George Bush, 1990
Administration of George Bush, 1990 / Nov. 28
ing "may secure directly from any depart-
take, and good-faith negotiation between
ment or agency of the United States such
in which the United States participates." If
Thus, the authority of the United States to
the Congress and the Administration. It re-
data and information as the Commission
this provision were construed to require the
manage the species added to the definition
forms and reauthorizes existing programs to
may require." I sign the bill with the under-
Secretary to implement the recommenda-
will continue, and the responsibility for
provide for community development, to op-
standing that this provision does not limit
tions of international organizations in which
managing those species will transfer imme-
erate and modernize public housing, and to
the constitutional ability of the President to
the United States participates, it would un-
diately from specified fishery management
assist in meeting the needs of low-income
withhold information, the disclosure of
constitutionally subject the executive
councils to the Secretary.
families, the elderly, and the handicapped.
which might significantly impair the con-
branch to the control of international
Finally, the Act contains a provision that
In addition, through HOPE, it provides the
duct of foreign relations, the national secu-
bodies that are not politically accountable
departs from procedures currently govern-
potential for the redirection of housing
rity, or the deliberative processes of the ex-
to the American people. Finally, two provi-
ing challenges to regulatory action taken
policy back toward the poor.
ecutive branch or the performance of its
sions purport to direct the Secretary to
under the Magnuson Fishery Conservation
The signing of the "Cranston-Gonzalez
constitutional duties.
make legislative recommendations to the
and Management Act. The provision se-
Finally, it is the Federal Government's
National Affordable Housing Act" presents
Congress. Under Article II, Section 3 of the
verely threatens the ability of the Attorney
us with an opportunity to renew our com-
responsibility to ensure that the benefits of
Constitution, the President possesses the ex-
General to provide reasoned and responsi-
Federal programs are offered to individuals
mitment to the goals we all share: decent,
clusive authority to determine which legis-
ble representation to the Secretary of Com-
safe, and affordable housing for all Ameri-
in a way consistent with the equal protec-
lative measures he and his subordinates will
merce in response to administrative chal-
cans.
tion guarantee of the Constitution. In that
recommend.
lenges to the Secretary's rule-making au-
regard, I am concerned about section 958(a)
George Bush
To avoid constitutional questions that
thority under the Act. It also imposes un-
of the Act, which provides a preference to
might otherwise arise, I will construe all
necessarily burdensome filing requirements
The White House,
native Hawaiians for housing assistance pro-
these provisions to be advisory, not manda-
on the Secretary. The Attorney General and
grams for housing located in the Hawaiian
November 28, 1990.
tory.
the Secretary will propose corrective legis-
homelands; section 958(d)(1), which defines
I am concerned that several of the Act's
lation next year to cure these procedural
"native Hawaiian" in a race-based fashion;
Note: S. 566, approved November 28, was
provisions regarding highly migratory spe-
difficulties.
and section 911, which would exempt this
assigned Public Law No. 101-625.
cies not be construed to create a gap in the
preference from the provisions of the Hous-
authority of the United States to manage
George Bush
ing and Community Development Act of
those species. Current law defines "highly
The White House,
1974 relating to nondiscrimination on the
migratory species" to mean only species of
November 28, 1990.
basis of race. This race-based classification
Statement on Signing the Fishery
tuna and excludes such species from the
cannot be derived from the constitutional
Conservation Amendments of 1990
exclusive fishery management authority as-
Note: H.R. 2061, approved November 28,
authority granted to the Congress and the
serted by the United States in our EEZ.
November 28, 1990
was assigned Public Law No. 101-627.
executive branch to benefit native Ameri-
H.R. 2061 would eliminate this exclusion
cans as members of tribes. I direct the At-
effective January 1, 1992. Thus, effective as
I am today signing H.R. 2061, the "Fish-
torney General and the Secretary of Hous-
of that date, the United States will assert
ery Conservation Amendments of 1990,"
ing and Urban Development to prepare re-
management authority over tuna in its
notwithstanding reservations I have con-
medial legislation for submission to the
EEZ. As a matter of international law, ef-
Statement on Signing the Bill
cerning some of its provisions.
Congress during its next session, so that this
fective immediately the United States will
Authorizing the Conveyance of Land
H.R. 2061 authorizes appropriations for
Act, and similar provisions in other Acts,
recognize similar assertions by coastal na-
by the Rumsey Indian Rancheria
and amends the Magnuson Fishery Conser-
can be brought into compliance with the
tions regarding their exclusive economic
vation and Management Act, which pro-
November 28, 1990
Constitution's requirements.
zones.
vides the primary authority for the conser-
I am pleased that, in crafting this legisla-
The Act also expands the definition of
Today I have signed H.R. 3703, an Act
vation and management of fishery resources
tion, the Congress also has modified a
"highly migratory species" to include
"To authorize the Rumsey Indian Rancheria
within the 200-mile Exclusive Economic
number of the rural housing programs ad-
marlin, ocean sharks, sailfishes, and sword-
to convey a certain parcel of land." H.R.
Zone (EEZ) off our coasts. Many of the
ministered by the Department of Agricul-
fish-non-tuna species for which manage-
3703 contains numerous provisions that will
amendments made by H.R. 2061 will
ture's Farmers Home Administration. As a
ment authority is presently asserted and ex-
promote the economic and social welfare of
enable us to better conserve and manage
result, these programs will be more respon-
ercised. Consequently, H.R. 2061 could be
native Americans. Those provisions that
our precious fishery resources.
sive to the needs of low-income residents of
interpreted to expand the exclusion and
provide for the prevention, identification,
However, numerous provisions of the Act
small towns and rural areas. A significant
thus withdraw the authority to manage
treatment, and investigation of child abuse
could be construed to encroach upon the
change is a new program of guaranteed
these species until the exclusion is eliminat-
and neglect on Indian reservations are mer-
President's authority under the Constitution
loans for homeownership by low- and mod-
ed in 1992. It is my understanding that the
itorious. I must, however, take note of two
to conduct foreign relations, including the
erate-income residents in rural areas. This
Congress intended the management of
issues that raise serious concerns.
unfettered conduct of negotiations with for-
housing reform will provide assistance to
these species to continue.
First, sections 405, 504, and 507 purport
eign nations. Further, one provision directs
these individuals and families more effec-
Accordingly, for purposes of the tuna ex-
to require the Secretary of the Interior and
that fishery management plans prepared or
tively and efficiently.
clusion that remains in effect until 1992, I
the Secretary of Health and Human Serv-
approved by the Secretary of Commerce
In conclusion, this legislation represents
will not construe the revised definition to
ices to submit various reports to the Con-
contain "regulations implementing recom-
true bipartisanship; considerable give-and-
take effect. For all other purposes, the re-
gress containing legislative recommenda-
mendations by international organizations
vised definition takes effect immediately.
tions. The Constitution grants to the Presi-
1932
1933
The T Backgrounder
Herîtage Foundation
No. 773
The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Avenue N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-4400
June 7, 1990
FULFILLING AMERICA'S PROMISE:
A CIVIL RIGHTS STRATEGY FOR THE 1990S
INTRODUCTION
The U.S. Congress currently is considering legislation that its proponents
claim will help to create equal opportunities for blacks and other minorities
and reduce the racism that persists in America. Far from that, however, the
proposed Civil Rights Act of 1990 will preserve and expand America's apart-
heid-like system of racial hiring quotas and do nothing to promote the eco-
nomic opportunities for what is becoming a permanent under class of minor-
ity Americans. Ironically, the plight of these poor is used to justify the new
civil rights law, yet the remedies proposed do not address their condition. In-
stead, the racial quotas encouraged by the Act at best may benefit only edu-
cated and upper income minorities.
Despite the civil rights gains of the last 25 years, one-third of the nation's
black population remains in poverty and one-fourth of all Hispanic Ameri-
cans live in poverty. What is needed is a civil rights bill that advances the op-
portunities of these and other poor Americans.
Outdated Thinking. The Civil Rights Act of 1990 represents an outdated
view of how minority Americans can gain equality of opportunity. Sponsored
by Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Representative Augustus
Hawkins of California, both Democrats, the bill offers 1960s-type solutions to
a problem that requires a progressive new strategy for the 1990s. To be sure,
many of the civil rights strategies employed in the 1950s and 1960s made cru-
cial strides toward equal opportunity for minority Americans. That civil rights
movement and the landmark statutes it achieved broke down barriers and
won widespread support among Americans. But many of the veterans of
those early battles still are locked into the thinking of that era. They focus on
racial quotas, preferences, and statistical-base racial balancing mechanisms as
Note: Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt
to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.
a weapon for advancing minorities, rather than on crafting strategies to give
minorities the basic tools needed to take advantage of the opportunities hard
won by Martin Luther King and other leaders of the original civil rights move-
ment.
Fortunately, however, a new generation of minority Americans is beginning
to question the relevance today of those old remedies. These Americans are
proposing new solutions to propel civil rights beyond the old formula and
into a new era of expanded opportunity and true equality of opportunity. The
debate in Congress challenges conservatives and liberals alike to fashion a
civil rights agenda that goes far beyond the outmoded approach of Ken-
nedy/Hawkins.
Ending a Paternalistic View. What is needed are not racial quotas and set-
asides, but an empowerment strategy that will unleash the capacity of individ-
uals who have been excluded from the mainstream. This will require lawmak-
ers to view differently those whom they wish to help. For too long govern-
ment in practice has treated low-income Americans as people who do not
have the capacity to make choices to better themselves. This paternalistic
view has had a devastating effect on minority communities because it has en-
couraged entire racial groups to believe that they cannot succeed without dis-
crimination in their favor and continuous aid from government. That has
spawned a generation dependent on government, with low self-esteem and lit-
tle hope for effecting change in their lives. With it has come broken families,
soaring crime and school dropout rates, and shattered community institutions
that once played a vital role in holding minority communities together.
The liberal civil rights agenda now being advanced in Congress perpetuates
the myth that the poor and all minorities are somehow handicapped and must
be given special preferences and handouts to succeed. This approach neces-
sarily embraces racial quotas and the massive social welfare programs that
have failed to create opportunities for the economically disadvantaged.
Unfilled Capacity. The conservative vision of progress, however, rests on a
very different premise: that low-income and minority Americans actually
have enormous unfilled capacity for achievement. By removing regulatory
barriers to economic opportunity and creating an environment in which these
individuals are empowered to take charge of their lives, conservatives believe
that capacity for achievement will be realized.
This conservative view of progress suggests a two-pronged civil rights strat-
egy. The first prong is vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws. Discrimina-
tion remains an all-too familiar fact of life for many Americans. Government
must prosecute cases of discrimination against individuals to the full extent of
the law. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, moreover, should be strength-
ened to include a remedy of damages against those who willfully discriminate.
Building on this enforcement strategy, the conservative civil rights strategy
would call for aggressive court and legislative action to challenge modern-day
Jim Crow laws that stifle minority business development. Examples include
the 1931 Davis Bacon Act, which freezes out minority firms from government
construction contracts, and onerous occupational licensing laws for profes-
2
sions ranging from cosmetology to child care. These barriers to economic op-
portunity, seemingly neutral in their impact on the races, actually dis-
proportionately harm minority entrepreneurs trying to use the opportunities
promised by the civil rights statutes. These remaining legal barriers, more-
over, pose the greatest hurdles to the poor - the very people who have been
left behind by today's civil rights movement.
-Attacking Quotas. This enforcement strategy also would attack racial quo-
tas that act as a ceiling to housing and educational opportunities for minori-
ties. Strict adherence to racial and ethnic composition ratios in public
schools, for example, has capped the number of minority students who can at-
tend magnet schools, even when those schools are operating far below capac-
ity. These and similar racial quotas that limit the number of Asian Americans
admitted to universities should be challenged by all who genuinely believe in
civil rights.
The second prong of the conservative civil rights agenda is individual em-
powerment to control one's own life. In many respects this is the essence of
civil rights and the key to true independence. As Robert Kennedy stated in
1966, "reliance on government is dependence - and what the people of our
ghettos need is not greater dependence, but full independence. ,,1 Conserva-
tives thus want to fulfill the promise of the civil rights movement by pursuing
a legislative strategy designed to remove government-imposed barriers that
stifle economic opportunities for the poor. Such barriers prevent the poor
from making such fundamental decisions as where they will live and who will
educate and care for their children.
The conservative empowerment strategy calls for enterprise zones in low-
income minority communities to reduce tax and regulatory impediments now
frustrating the entrepreneurial spirit of those communities. It calls for a rejec-
tion of the public education double standard that condemns poor, primarily
minority students to second-rate schools, by injecting competition into the
American education system. Parental choice and education vouchers for low-
income families are needed to empower parents as consumers with the ability
to make choices in a market that now is open only to those who are not poor.
This strategy also means vesting community groups with the power and re-
sponsibility to deliver services currently managed by bureaucrats. Public hous-
ing tenants, for example, should be allowed to manage and eventually to own
their own housing units, building on the successes of such efforts in Boston,
St. Louis, and Washington D.C. Empowerment also means that government
must make good on its fundamental responsibility of protecting its law-abid-
ing citizens from crime, creating an environment in which they can prosper.
Thus innovative ideas like a police ROTC for students from low-income com-
munities can be an important element of the conservative civil rights strategy.
1 Quoted from "Empowerment: A Vision for the 1990s," Task Force on Empowerment, House Republican
Research Committee, U.S. House of Representatives.
3
George Bush has a tremendous opportunity to forge a new civil rights
agenda that fulfills the equal opportunities promised by the original civil
rights movement. He should start by vetoing the Kennedy/Hawkins bill and
the destructive racial quotas that it promotes. The President already has
made a solid step in this direction, promising in a May 17, 1990, speech to
veto any civil rights bill "whose unintended consequences are quotas." Next,
he should propose new policy initiatives that express his vision of civil rights,
rooted in empowerment and a firm commitment to prosecute actual discrimi-
nation. In what may prove to be a historic speech on civil rights, Bush on May
17 first articulated the critical connection between civil rights and empower-
ment, proclaiming that any changes in civil rights law must embrace "a
broader agenda of empowerment." As John F. Kennedy did in 1961, Bush
should issue an executive order that puts forth his vision of an empowerment
civil rights agenda. This executive order should instruct the federal govern-
ment to implement Bush's civil rights strategy of removing racial and eco-
nomic barriers to individual independence.
THE STATE OF CIVIL RIGHTS
Since its origins in the American revolutionary era, the quest for civil rights
always has meant securing for individuals the power to control their own des-
tinies. The past quarter-century has witnessed both major triumphs and seri-
ous setbacks in this quest. The civil rights laws of the 1960s opened the doors
of opportunity to millions of previously excluded Americans in such crucial
areas as employment, education, voting, and public accommodations.
Indeed, Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, who is black, has writ-
ten that "black Americans are probably America's greatest success story. En-
slaved a little more than a hundred years ago, there are now 2 million of them
living affluently. ,,2 Milloy notes that between 1967 and 1987 the number of
black households earning $50,000 or more grew from 212,000 to 764,000, an
2 Michael Novak, "The Invisible Man," American Enterprise Institute, On the Issue, from Forbes, February 19,
1990.
4
increase of 360 percent. The total income of America's 28 million blacks is
larger than the gross domestic product of all but ten nations. 3 Since the mid-
1960s, moreover, the number of African-American elected officials has quad-
rupled. And black politicians now govern four of America's six largest cities.
In recent years, however, the focus of many civil rights policies has shifted
from securing equal opportunity to securing equal outcomes among racial
and ethnic groups, through quotas, set-asides, busing, and welfare. Though ad-
vocated as temporary measures necessary to undo rapidly the lingering ef-
fects of past discrimination, these devices have grown increasingly en-
trenched. 4 Indeed, many "establishment" civil rights leaders 5 demand adher-
ence to this agenda as a civil rights litmus test.
6
We know what
Little Help for Disadvantaged. This agenda is destructive for many rea-
sons, but the most damning indictment - delivered by critics spanning the
philosophical spectrum from Charles Murray to William Julius Wilson - is
that it hasn't worked. 7 Sociologist Wilson, of the University of Chicago, notes
that while many blacks have enjoyed economic progress in recent years, for
millions of others "the past three decades have been a time of regression, not
progress." As Wilson explains, "[R]ace-specific policies. , although benefi-
works Fredom works.
cial to more advantaged blacks. , do little for those who are truly disadvan-
taged. ,,8 Adds Robert Woodson, President of the Washington, D.C.-based Na-
tional Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, a grass roots organization that
promotes self-help solutions to local community problems, "Affirmative ac-
tion does not help the black dishwasher or the untrained black youth. A
3 Ibid.
4 See, e.g., Clint Bolick, Changing Course: Civil Rights at the Crossroads (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction
Books, 1988), P. 53-78.
5 See, e.g. Clint Bolick, In Whose Name? The Civil Rights Establishment Today (Washington, D.C.: Capital
Research Center, 1988).
6 National Urban League President John E. Jacob, for instance, asserts that "[t]he goal of parity is the one
constant that must be shared by anyone who presumes to hold a leadership position in the black community."
John E. Jacob, "Black Leadership in a Reactionary Era," The Urban League Review (Summer 1985), p. 42-43.
7 See Bolick, Changing Course, pp. 84-91. As economists James P. Smith and Finis R. Welch recently
concluded, "[A]ffirmative action apparently has [had] no significant long-range effect" on the wage gap between
blacks and whites. Closing the Gap: Forty Years of Economic Progress for Blacks (Santa Monica, California: The
Rand Corporation, 1986), p. 95. Rather, the principal effect of race-conscious strategies, according to William
Julius Wilson, is a "growing economic schism between lower-income and higher-income black families." William
Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 110.
8 Ibid., pp. 110 and 42. Wilson's dismal economic prognosis was largely confirmed by the recent report of the
Committee on the Status of Black Americans. Gerald David Jaynes and Robin M. Williams, eds., A Common
Destiny (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1989).
9 Robert L. Woodson, "Race and Economic Opportunity," NPI Policy Review Series, National Center for
Neighborhood Enterprise, 1989, p. 3.
5
civil rights agenda that promotes racial set-asides for the middle-class, writes
Washington Post columnist William Raspberry, "is like demanding that the so-
ciety supply aspirin for your uncle because your nephew has a headache. Isn't
it time to abandon this bait-and-switch game in favor of truth in labeling?"¹⁰
The Victims of Racial Politics
The failure of race-specific assistance programs to arrest the growing cleav-
age between disadvantaged and more successful blacks is borne out by census
data. There has been, as Harvard political economist Glenn Loury has shown,
"significant improvement in the earnings of employed black workers over the
period 1940-1980. ,,11 But, says Loury, the average gains in black workers'
earnings have not been "enjoyed equally by all black workers." In fact, earn-
ings inequality within the black population has increased during the last 25
years, and remains greater than income differentials among white workers.
Fact: In 1959, the bottom 40 percent of black men earned 8 percent of the
total earnings of all black men. By 1984 that bottom 40 percent earned only 4
percent of total earnings. Conversely, the top 20 percent of black men in 1959
earned 50 percent of total black 12 male earnings. By 1984 this same 20 percent
earned 60 percent of the total.
Fact: From 1970-1986, the proportion of black families with incomes over
$35,000 grew from 15.7 percent to 21.2 percent, and the proportion with in-
comes over $50,000 nearly doubled, from 4.7 percent to 8.8 percent. Yet dur-
ing the same period, the proportion of black families with incomes of less
than $10,000 also grew, from 26.8 percent to 30.2 percent.
What is the cause of such disparities? If racism were the answer, it would
present a barrier for all blacks. And as Loury concludes, "[E]mployment dis-
crimination is not a major factor." Rather, he points out, such practical fac-
tors as education contribute significantly to income differentials among
blacks as well as between blacks and whites. Annual earnings of college-edu-
cated black males, for example, rose by 6 percent relative to whites between
1969 and 1984. The disintegration of the traditional family among poor
blacks, however, accounts for much of this disparity: The poverty rate for
black families headed by a single mother is 50 percent - more than four times
the rate for intact, two-parent black families. The median income of two-par-
ent black families now is 88 percent that of comparable 13 white families, and
the disparity is closing at a rate of 5 points a year.
10 "Playing on White Guilt," Washington Post, May 14, 1990.
11 Testimony of Professor Glenn C. Loury, before the Committee on Labor and Human Resources of the U.S.
Senate, concerning S. 2104, the Civil Rights Act of 1990, February 23, 1990.
12 Ibid.
13 "Restoring the Black Family," Family (The Family Research Council), September/October 1989. Woodson,
op. cit., p. 11.
6
Fact: Between 1960 and 1988 the percentage of black women aged 15-44
married with a spouse present in the household declined from 51.4 percent to
29.1 percent. For whites, the decline was 69.1 percent to 54.5 percent. Be-
tween 1960 and 1988 the percent of black children living with a black married
couple fell from 67 percent to 38.6 percent, while the number of black chil-
dren living with a never-married person rose by more than 1400 percent,
from 2.1 percent to 29.3 percent. By 1988, 61.2 percent of black children were
born to an unmarried woman. 14
Liberal solutions of quotas, forced integration, and other race-based ap-
proaches to civil rights clearly do not empower most blacks. Black men, par-
ticularly, are even more alienated from the economic mainstream. The last 25
years, for example, have witnessed a pronounced downward trend in the num-
can
ber of black men participating in the labor force. Fact: In 1962, almost 60 per-
say
cent of young black males were employed, but by 1985 only 44 percent were
we
employed.
15 The reason for this dramatic decline was not that jobs disap-
this
peared - in fact, it was a period of remarkable job creation. Nor is racism the
culprit. The principal destructive influence was a burgeoning welfare system
that subsidized family breakups and nonemployment.
Victim Identity. Liberal civil rights policies also have had a more insidious
effect on the economic advancement of blacks. Shelby Steele, Associate Pro-
fessor of English at San Jose University, has written that the prevalence of ra-
cial quotas and preferences has ingrained in blacks an identity of themselves
as victims. This identity as victim, argues Steele, who is black, perpetuates a
sense of low-self esteem among blacks and a feeling of powerlessness, which
stifles individual initiative and responsibility. Writes Steele:
Social victims may be collectively entitled, but they
are all too often individually demoralized. Since the
social victim has been oppressed by society, he
comes to feel that his individual life will be
improved more by changes in society than by his
own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society
rather than himself the agent of change. The power
he finds in victimization may lead him to collective
action against society, but it 16 also encourages
passivity within his own life.
Steele notes that after the death of Martin Luther King, the civil rights
movement's message of equal opportunity was supplanted by a focus of
blacks as victims entitled to special reparations from white society. "The 1964
civil rights bill," writes Steele, "was passed on the understanding that equal
14 Loury. op. cit.
15 Novak, op. cit.
16 Shelby Steele, "I'm Black, You're White, Who's Innocent," Harpers, June, 1989.
7
opportunity would not mean racial preference. But in the late 1960s and early
1970s, affirmative action underwent a remarkable escalation of its mission
from simple anti-discrimination enforcement to social engineering by means
of quotas, goals, timetables, set-asides and other forms of preferential treat-
,,17
ment.
These policies remain the agenda of the liberal civil rights establish-
ment.
Supreme Courtrulings, however, may signal a turning point for the
future direction of civil rights policy. In a series of decisions last year, 18 the
Court called squarely into question the use of racial quotas as well as the as-
sumptions on which race-conscious measures are based. 19 Yet old guard civil
rights leaders and their congressional allies reacted to these rulings swiftly
and predictably, condemning them and urging "corrective" legislation. Sena-
tor Kennedy and Representative Hawkins introduced legislation to overturn
most of the rulings and further expand the scope of the civil rights laws.
WHY THE KENNEDY/HAWKINS BILL FAILS MINORITY AMERICANS
Undergirding the Kennedy/Hawkins legislation is the assumption that
every significant difference in statistical outcomes among racial or ethnic
groups is attributable to discrimination and curable by quotas. 20 This as-
sumption is flawed. While discrimination remains a serious obstacle for mi-
norities, it is not the primary barrier to opportunity afflicting the economi-
cally disadvantaged. Observes the National Center for Neighborhood
Enterprise's Woodson, "Vague cries for 'peace, jobs, and freedom' are mean-
ingless when a permanent (and growing) underclass of more than one-third
of all black Americans, unskilled and undereducated, remains untouched by
civil rights gains, the war on poverty, increased black political power, and a
mammoth social welfare industry. ,,21 Civil rights policies that fail to recog-
nize this fact and to confront real obstacles to progress are doomed to repeat
the failures of the past.
At the heart of the Kennedy/Hawkins bill are provisions that will make it
all but impossible for employers to defend themselves against a claim of dis-
criminatory hiring practices. Under the proposed law, a business that fails to
17 Shelby Steele, "A Negative Vote on Affirmative Action," New York Times Magazine, May 13, 1990.
18 City of Richmond V. J.A. Croson Co., 109 S.Ct. 706 (1989) (striking down Richmond's minority contract
set-aside program); Wards Cove Packing Co. V. Antonio, 109 S.Ct. 2115 (1989) (making it less difficult for
employers to defend employee selection practices against discrimination charges that are based solely on
statistics without evidence of discrimination); Martin V. Wilks, 109 S.Ct. 2180 (1989) (allowing challenges to racial
quotas contained in consent decrees by those who are affected); and Patterson V. McLean Credit Union, 109
S.Ct. 2362 (1989) (holding that the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which prohibits discrimination in the making of
contracts, does not cover instances of racial harassment).
19 See Clint Bolick, "The Supreme Court and Civil Rights: A Challenge for George Bush," Heritage Foundation
Backgrounder No. 728, September 28, 1989.
20 See Bolick, Changing Course, pp. 56-60.
21 Woodson, op. cit., p. 3.
8
meet certain racial and ethnic percentages in the composition of its work
force must prove that such disparities are not due to discrimination. This is a
reversal of normal legal standards. Usually, a claimant must prove that a de-
fendant has violated some legal standard in order to prevail. Under the pro-
posed legislation, however, the claimant need only show that racial hiring per-
centages have not been met, and the burden then shifts to the employer to
prove the absence of discrimination. Thus the employer is presumed guilty un-
less innocence is proved.
Insurmountable Standard. In addition to this shifting of the burdens, the
legislation proposes another hurdle that will make it impossible for an em-
ployer actually to prove that he or she does not discriminate. Under the Ken-
nedy/Hawkins bill, if the work force of a business fails to meet the prescribed
racial composition, the only way that an employer can rebut the presumption
of discrimination is by proving that his or her hiring criteria bears "a substan-
tial and demonstrable relationship to effective job performance." This is an
insurmountable legal standard, and a reversal of the Supreme Court's 1989
ruling in Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Antonio that a business need only show
that a challenged hiring practice "serves, in a significant way, the legitimate
goals of the employer." Under the elevated hurdle proposed by the Ken-
nedy/Hawkins bill, such reasonable and non-racial hiring criteria as requiring
a high school or college diploma could fail to meet the "substantial and de-
monstrable" test necessary to rebut a claim of discrimination. A company
that merely shows that it applies the same standards to everyone, regardless
of race, will be found guilty of discrimination.
Faced with such hurdles, rational employers will turn to racial quotas as the
only reasonable means to protect themselves from lawsuits. To avoid litiga-
tion, employers will have no recourse but to hire a certain percentage of their
employees based not on merit or qualifications, but solely on the basis of
race. Indeed, writing in the weekly lawyers' newspaper Legal Times, liberal
columnist Stuart Taylor, Jr. notes that the bill would "pressure employers sur-
reptitiously to use quotas to improve their statistics." This is not a positive di-
rection for civil rights. As George Bush said in his May 17 Rose Garden
speech on civil rights, "The focus of employers in this country must be on pro-
viding equal opportunity for all workers, not on developing strategies to avoid
litigation."
Presumption of Discrimination. Another adverse impact of the Ken-
nedy/Hawkins bill would be to establish "quota ceilings" on the number of
minorities employed in low-skilled jobs. One of the issues in the Wards Cove
case was a disparity in the company's work force between the number of mi-
norities employed in low-skilled factory jobs and upper-level management po-
sitions. Under the proposed Kennedy/Hawkins bill, such a disparity would
create the presumption of employer discrimination. The result: rather than
hiring more minorities for management level positions, many employers sim-
ply would reduce the number of minorities employed in low-skilled positions
so as to avoid the unequal percentages that would result in liability.
9
By its narrow focus on statistical disparities and racial quotas, the Ken-
nedy/Hawkins bill would codify the racial divisions that continue to fuel racial
tensions between whites and minorities. Rather than equal opportunity for
all, the bill would offer racial entitlements for a select few. What is needed in-
stead is a positive civil rights strategy geared toward empowering all individu-
als with the independence they need to make the choices necessary to suc-
ceed. The two key elements of this new civil rights agenda are vigorous en-
forcement of anti-discrimination laws and progressing from the old agenda of
affirmative action to a new strategy of affirmative empowerment.
CONSERVATIVES AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS
The conservative civil rights agenda must be more than opposition to racial
quotas. Conservatives must assert a strong affirmative commitment to enforc-
ing civil rights laws and prosecuting discrimination. Civil rights law enforce-
ment officials should take their lead from U.S. Appeals Court Judge Clarence
Thomas, who served as chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) from 1982 to 1990. Thomas demonstrated that vigorous
civil rights law enforcement need not mean quotas. He reorganized and
streamlined a previously ineffective agency; he established a policy of full re-
lief for victims of discrimination (the EEOC previously settled for quotas,
which employers were happy to accept); and he shifted the agency's focus
away from cases involving statistics to those involving individual victims - the
very people who could not find help elsewhere. As a consequence, Thomas
was able to secure more relief for more victims of discrimination than ever
before had been obtained.
The new civil rights strategy should reject quotas as an unfair and racially
divisive remedy, and instead seek tough penalties against discriminators and
full relief for victims of actual discrimination. This would require amending
the employment provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to strengthen dam-
age remedies, 22 an approach supported by Clarence Thomas, former Attor-
ney General Edwin Meese, and former Assistant Attorney General William
Bradford Reynolds. In the desegregation context, conservatives should push
for monetary damages instead of busing. Rather than merely reassigning stu-
dents to achieve racial balance, damages in the form of education vouchers
should be a remedy available to successful plaintiffs. Currently, the preferred
judicial remedy in desegregation cases are such "equitable remedies" as bus-
ing and racial quotas. These forms of relief advance "group" rather than "indi-
vidual" remedies. Yet as Clarence Thomas demonstrated during his tenure at
the EEOC, remedies that focus on individual relief are possible and far more
effective. A remedy of education vouchers would secure better the goal of
equal opportunity by enabling parents to choose the best education opportu-
nities available for their children.
22 See Bolick, "The Supreme Court and Civil Rights," p. 8.
10
Economic Barriers. Aggressive enforcement of civil rights laws also means
pursuing litigation and legislation to remove regulatory barriers to economic
opportunity. In the courts and legislatures, conservative civil rights advocates
should join with members of minority groups to challenge on civil rights
grounds such economic barriers as the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, which prevents
minority firms from securing government construction contracts. This law re-
quires that inflated "prevailing wages" be paid on all government construc-
tion contracts. In practice, this has meant that only firms willing and able to
pay union scale wages can secure government construction contracts. Such
Davis
firms typically are large, established, white-owned businesses that can afford
to pay inflated wages. Smaller, more competitive minority firms that cannot
Bacon
absorb such costs thus are prevented from securing the contracts, even
though they can perform the work at lower cost. The law also discourages the
hiring of low-skilled workers by establishing high entry-level wages. The pre-
dictable combined impact of these restrictions is the disproportionate exclu-
sion 23 of minority entrepreneurs and laborers, which was an explicit goal of the
bill.
Limiting Competition. Occupational licensing laws and regulations that re-
strict the formation of new businesses also should be confronted for their dis-
parate impact on minorities. Many of these restrictions are unrelated to pub-
lic health or safety objectives, and in fact often are promoted by the profes-
sions themselves to limit competition. Like the Jim Crow laws of an earlier
era, these laws often impede minority participation in professions and busi-
nesses. Taxicab regulations, for example, strictly limit the number of entrepre-
neurs in a business that otherwise would be easily accessible to minorities. Li-
censing laws also exclude from professions those who are demonstrably quali-
fied, but who cannot satisfy arbitrary and formalistic requirements. These li-
censing restrictions commonly are prevalent in such entry-level trades and
professions as cosmetology, barbering, photography, stenography, interior
decorating, and pool cleaning.
More rigorous enforcement of civil rights laws also requires confronting
quota "ceilings" in education and housing. To achieve racial balance in public
schools and housing, government authorities set rigid quotas that operate to
exclude minorities. Example: In California universities, Asian American stu-
dents are excluded from admission because they are "overrepresented"
among eligible candidates for admission. 24 Example: In Kansas City magnet
schools, black youngsters are denied admission so the school district can hold
seats empty for white students. 25 These experiences illustrate how race-based
23 See Congressional Record-House, February 28, 1931, pps. 6504-6521.
24 See Dan C. Heldman, "Ending College Admission Quotas Against Asian-Americans," Heritage Foundation
Executive Memorandum No. 240, June 30, 1989; Representative Dana Rohrabacher, "College Admission Quotas
Against Asian-Americans: Why Is the Civil Rights Community Silent?" Heritage Lectures No. 236.
25 See "Blacks sue over KC desegregation plan," The Washington Times, July 17, 1989.
11
policies, however well-intentioned, can ultimately harm the very individuals
they are purported to benefit.
Affirmative Action
If one term exists in the American lexicon that conservatives need to recap-
ture, it is "affirmative action." Conservatives generally have been perceived
to be "opposed" to affirmative action. If affirmative action means quotas,
such opposition is warranted. But "affirmative action" need not be synony-
mous with quotas; conservatives, therefore, should not be considered adver-
saries of affirmative action as it was originally intended.
Affirmative action as practiced in the mid-1960s recognized that many indi-
viduals were ill equipped, for reasons of past discrimination, to take advan-
tage of the equal opportunities secured to them for the first time by the newly
enacted civil rights laws. Affirmative action thus meant providing tools to en-
able those who had been held back by discrimination to compete effectively
in the market. It did not mean racial hiring quotas.
Origin of a Term. The term first was used by John F. Kennedy in his Execu-
tive Order No. 10925, issued in 1961. As Hoover Institution economist
Thomas Sowell has noted, Kennedy's order specifically provided that affirma-
tive action was not intended as a system of racial quotas or hiring prefer-
ences. Instead, it was an effort to disseminate information about federal jobs
to encourage previously excluded groups to apply, and to insure fairness in
hiring and promotion regardless of race. Thus, Kennedy ordered federal con-
tractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that the applicants are em-
ployed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to
their race, creed, color, or national origin. ,,26
Senator Hubert Humphrey, the Minnesota Democrat and architect of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, also took pains to distinguish affirmative action
from racial quotas. During Senate debate on the civil rights bill, Humphrey
instructed his colleagues that the bill "does not require an employer to
achieve any kind of racial balance in his work force by giving preferential
treatment to any individual or group. ,,27 But Thomas Sowell recounts that
"the original meaning of 'affirmative action,' as a general attempt to inform
and recruit applicants from groups long excluded from employment and
other opportunities, quickly gave way to its current meaning - choosing
among applicants on the basis of numerical group results.
The firm opposition to racial quotas expressed by most liberals in the 1960s
was well founded. Quotas (sometimes called "goals and timetables") could
26 Thomas Sowell, Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? (New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1984) p. 39.
27 Ibid.
28 Thomas Sowell, "Weber and Bakke, and the Presuppositions of 'Affirmative Action," in W.E. Block and M.A.
Walker, eds., Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and Equal Opportunity (Vancouver: The Fraser Institute,
1982), p. 61.
12
not accomplish the original - and still salient - objectives of affirmative ac-
tion. All quotas do is to redistribute opportunities as part of a zero-sum
game: every person's gain means another's loss. Quotas, moreover, do not
help the economically disadvantaged gain the skills necessary to compete ef-
fectively. Thus affirmative action comprised solely of quotas has aided better-
qualified minority candidates while not addressing the real-world needs of
people outside the economic mainstream. As William Julius Wilson argues,
future affirmative action must consist of efforts "targeted to truly disadvan-
taged individuals regardless of their race or ethnicity.
CONSERVATIVES AND EMPOWERMENT
The second element of a new civil rights agenda is individual empower-
ment. This empowerment means giving individuals the opportunity to realize
their potential and achieve economic independence by giving them the power
to choose the conditions under which they live - such as how their family will
be educated and where they will live. Liberal social welfare programs do not
empower the poor. Rather they empower government and an industry of so-
cial service providers that prospers by managing the lives of the poor. The
conservative idea of empowerment, by contrast, derives from the movement's
roots in market economics and classical liberalism - power not as control
over others but as the freedom to control one's own affairs, the essential in-
gredient of liberty.
A civil rights strategy based on empowerment focuses on enabling individu-
als to choose how they will improve their condition. The aim is to help low-in-
come Americans by expanding opportunities rather than by merely redistrib-
uting them. The impetus for such efforts is not the coercive power of govern-
ment, but consumer choice in the market. To achieve empowerment, the new
civil rights strategy must confront remaining systemic obstacles that prevent
individuals from controlling their own destinies. At least four such obstacles
exist: stifling regulation of entrepreneurial opportunities, poor public schools,
the welfare system, and crime. All of these barriers disproportionately bur-
den people outside the economic mainstream, who disproportionately are mi-
norities.
An empowerment strategy to unlock the pent-up capacity of lower-income
minority Americans requires many actions on several fronts. Among them:
1) Remove obstacles to entrepreneurs. Economic liberty is a fundamental
civil right. Yet this liberty to pursue a livelihood free from excessive or arbi-
trary interference is the forgotten civil right. This right was destroyed by the
1873 Slaughter-House cases³⁰ in which the Supreme Court ruled erroneously
that economic liberty was not included among privileges or immunities of citi-
29 Wilson, op. cit., p. 117.
30 83 U.S. 36 (1873).
13
zenship protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. As a consequence, entre-
preneurial opportunities are burdened by a pervasive array of regulations at
every level of government, from the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act and federal mini-
mum wage laws to local occupational licensing laws and government-con-
ferred business monopolies. These laws, most of which were enacted not to
promote public health or safety but to limit competition, stifle the tradition of
bootstraps capitalism that is America's beacon to the enterprising poor. In es-
sence, these restrictions cut off the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, so
vital to the poor and those who have suffered discrimination, thereby destroy-
ing traditional methods for upward mobility.³¹
Conservatives should champion an Economic Liberty Act, which would re-
quire governmental entities to limit regulations restricting entry into trades
or businesses to demonstrable public health, safety, or welfare objectives.
Conservatives also should challenge as civil rights violations the most arbi-
trary and oppressive economic regulations. 32 In this way, conservatives not
only would help complete the legal work of the original civil rights move-
ment, but would open the most important door to economic independence:
self-employment and business creation.
2) Introduce parental choice into education. Education is the key to prog-
ress. It is the great equalizer of the races, the most powerful tool for eliminat-
ing racism. But interposed between precious educational opportunities and
those who need them the most stand America's often substandard public
schools. And the greatest number of victims of that system are those who
have no other choice - the inner city schoolchildren whose opportunities for
advancement are crushed at schools that seem answerable to no one. Minori-
ties disproportionately are the victims of America's dismal public school per-
formance. Dropout rates for black and Hispanic students exceed those for
Chicago
whites, especially in urban areas. In the Chicago public schools, for example,
the 1988-1989 school year dropout rate for whites was 13.9 percent, com-
sofs
pared with a 23.3 percent rate for Hispanics and a 60.9 percent rate for
blacks. 33 These young dropouts may in one sense be making a rational
31 See Bolick, Changing Course, p. 94-104.
32 Landmark Legal Foundation's Center for Civil Rights last year successfully challenged a District of
Columbia ordinance prohibiting street corner shoe shine stands, and is currently challenging Houston's
"anti-jitney law" and a National Park Service regulation that has destroyed the native Virgin Islander charter
boat industry.
33 Chicago Public Schools, Board of Education. Chicago defines a dropout as any student, sixteen or older,
who has been removed from the enrollment roster for any reason other than death, extended illness, graduation,
or completion of an equivalency program. Also included are transferring students whose records have not been
requested by another public or private school.
14
choice: why stay in a substandard public school? But the tragedy is that unlike
individuals of moderate and upper incomes, these low income students and
their families have no opportunity to transfer to better schools.
America needs to empower low-income minorities and others as consum-
ers with a choice of schools, by providing to parents a portion of the dollars
spent on schooling in the form of a tax credit or voucher to purchase the edu-
cation that best suits their children's needs. Studies show that choice and com-
petition in education work, particularly for those who have lacked the most
basic educational opportunities. 34 Moreover, polling shows that vouchers are
especially popular among inner city minority parents. 35 Returning to parents
choice of, control over, and responsibility for the education of their children
is the first step in expanding educational opportunities.
The successes of educational choice initiatives in such states as Minnesota
and in low income communities, like East Harlem, New York, should con-
tinue to be highlighted and serve as a model for expanded efforts. Conserva-
tives, too, should craft educational empowerment strategies that support and
build on such educational voucher plans as that achieved in Milwaukee, Wis-
consin, owing to the efforts of State Representative Annette "Polly" Wil-
liams, a black Democrat who represents low-income inner city constituents.
black son you
3) Make welfare a ladder, not a permanent crutch. The welfare system has
fueled a self-perpetuating cycle of dependency, which has influenced minori-
of drohwast her
ties disproportionately. Intended as a temporary helping hand in the case of
the able-bodied, the welfare system not only has encouraged millions to re-
main on its rolls, but also in most instances has rewarded destructive behavior
of means door
and penalized those who sought to become independent. Example: if a father
walks out on his family, they become eligible for welfare. If instead of leaving,
lacks thrmvst all
he takes a low-paying job to try to fulfill his responsibility, the family often is
financially worse off.
The welfare system is particularly damaging to minorities because many of
of wdo
these families are at the margin, where welfare is an attractive option. More-
over, the "official" leadership of the black and Hispanic communities has
added to the problem by urging government to increase benefits for those on
34 See Clint Bolick, "A Primer on Choice in Education: Part I - How Choice Works," Heritage Foundation
Backgrounder No. 760, March 21, 1990.
35 Alec M. Gallup, "The 18th Annual Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools," Phi
Delta Kappan, September 1986, pp. 58,59. A 1989 Gallup/Phi Delta Kappan poll found that 67 percent of
non-whites favor educational choice.
What good does It do open doors of opportunity it
if don t have means to do
remove.Racial discrim
MLK
Bill Raspberry
isn "t tantamount
10/29/65
15 WP
to a care
the rolls, while doing little to support proposals to reward those who strive to
become independent.
The federal government should encourage economic emancipation by re-
ducing dependency on welfare and rewarding those who work. This strategy
requires a major reform of the welfare system and anti-poverty programs to
encourage independence and reward those 36 who take their responsibilities se-
riously. Among the key reforms needed:
Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, which supplements the earn-
ings of very low-paid workers through the tax code. 37 This would
reward
work, encourage many on welfare to climb the ladder of employment, and en-
sure that families would move out of poverty if they joined the work force.
Make some form of work mandatory for all welfare programs serving
the able-bodied.
Attach a portion of the earnings of all absent fathers, married or un-
married, if their family is on welfare. If the father claims to be unemployed,
require him to enroll full time in a government work program.
Encourage home ownership among the poor through "urban home-
steading" programs, and an acceleration of tenant management of public
38
housing.
Enact "enterprise zone" legislation, which would reduce tax and regu-
latory barriers to job creation in the inner city.
4) Crack down on Crime. The new civil rights agenda should emphasize
the most fundamental of civil rights: freedom from crime. Personal security is
the primary justification for government. Government, however, is failing to
protect its law-abiding minority citizens against crime.
Crime falls disproportionately on minorities, creating an additional barrier
to those striving for economic independence and social responsibility. Black
households in 1988, for example, were 60 percent more likely to be burglar-
ized and three times more likely to be robbed than white households. Black
households suffer more than twice the number of motor vehicle thefts and al-
36 See also, Stuart M. Butler, "Razing the Liberal Plantation: A Conservative War in Poverty," in National
Review, November 10, 1989, p. 27; Stuart M. Butler, "Welfare," in Charles L. Heatherly and Burton Yale Pines,
eds., Mandate For Leadership III: Policy Strategies for the 1990s (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation,
1989) p. 253; Stuart M. Butler and Anna Kondratas, Out of the Poverty Trap (New York: The Free Press, 1987).
37 See Stuart M. Butler, "The Peace Dividend: It Belongs to the People, Not Congress," Heritage Foundation
Backgrounder No. 752, February 9, 1990.
38 See John Scanlon, "Pcople Power in the Projects: How Tenant Management Can Save Public Housing,"
Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 758, March 8, 1990.
16
most 65 percent more incidents of aggravated assault than whites. 39 The prob-
ability of being murdered is six times greater for blacks than for whites. 40 His-
panics, too, are far more likely than whites to be victims of crime. From 1979-
1986, for example, Hispanic Americans were victims of violent crime at a rate
twice that of non-Hispanics. 41
If conservatives and the inner-city poor can make common cause on any
issue, it should be crime. Strong anti-crime measures directed toward urban
centers, along with meaningful protection of victims' rights, form the founda-
tion of an effort to better secure vulnerable individuals in their persons and
their property. Creating a crime-free environment in poor communities will
require several changes in the law to favor the victim over the victimizer.
Among them: "victim's rights" laws that compel criminals to make restitution
to their victims, and require prosecutors to take the victim's interests into ac-
count in sentencing and probation. Government also should reprioritize its
law enforcement strategy in poor communities. Law enforcement should
focus on preventing and prosecuting crimes against persons and property in
the ghettos, and increasing penalties for such crimes.
Ridding America's minority communities of the source of crime also will
require empowerment strategies to involve communities in the fight. One
idea that merits study is a proposal currently 42 before Congress to create a po-
lice ROTC program for poor communities.
Under the plan, students would receive college tuition in exchange for
serving on the police force of their community after graduation. Such addi-
tions to urban police forces would free more officers to perform such vital
functions as foot patrol on the streets of poor communities.
WHAT GEORGE BUSH SHOULD DO
Obviously, George Bush can do a great deal to advance a conservative strat-
egy on civil rights - one that will do far more to advance civil rights than the
Kennedy/Hawkins legislation. He enjoys enormous popularity among both
white and minority Americans. The time is ripe for a Bush-led civil rights
strategy that would build on the foundation laid in the 1960s. The President
thus should draw on his popularity and credibility by restoring momentum to
a quest for civil rights that has strayed off course for the past generation. Al-
ready, Bush has taken an important step in this direction with his May 17
Rose Garden speech on civil rights. In that ground-breaking speech, he
vowed to veto any civil rights bill that would promote racial quotas, and he re-
39 See Joseph Perkins, ed., A Conservative Agenda For Black Americans (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage
Foundation, 1987, 1990) pps. 31-32.
40 Bolick, Changing Course, pp. 116-118.
41 "Hispanic Victimization," Bureau of Justice Statistics, January 1990.
42 S. 1299, "The Police Corps Act of 1989." Sponsors include Republican Senators Specter, Heinz, Rudman,
Coats, and Lott. Democrats include Senators Sasser, Bradley, Lieberman, and Dodd.
17
defined civil rights to include empowerment strategies for the poor. Next, the
President should:
1) Veto the Kennedy/Hawkins bill. To sign into law a civil rights bill that
promotes racial quotas would be to surrender to racism. And to sign a civil
rights bill that fails to include empowerment initiatives for the poor would ig-
nore the civil rights of those who are struggling the most. The Kennedy/Haw-
kins bill champions a failed policy agenda and does little to solve the most
pressing civil rights problems. If the bill passes Congress, Bush should veto it
and immediately shift the terms of the debate from quotas to empowerment.
2) Issue an Executive Order on Empowerment. In 1961 President John F.
Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925 that mandated affirmative action
throughout the federal government. Now, nearly three decades later, George
Bush should issue a new executive order building on Kennedy's vision and
propelling government into a new era of civil rights action.
This executive order should require all federal agencies, departments, and
offices to review existing policies and regulations and eliminate those that sti-
fle the economic empowerment of minorities. Like Kennedy's executive
order, Bush should require the federal government to take affirmative action
to recruit minorities and also to break down barriers to their economic lib-
erty. Bush should order the federal government to restructure affirmative ac-
tion to encourage empowerment efforts aimed at increasing human capital
and removing obstacles to the economically disadvantaged.
The Bush executive order also should require that every new government
regulation be accompanied by an "Empowerment Impact Statement" that ad-
dresses how the regulation would help to empower low-income Americans to
manage their own affairs and attain economic liberty.
3) Establish a Commission on Economic Mobility. In his 1961 Executive
Order, Kennedy established the President's Committee on Equal Employ-
ment Opportunity to "scrutinize and study employment practices of the Gov-
ernment of the United States, and to consider and recommend additional af-
firmative steps which should be taken by executive departments and agencies
to realize more fully the national policy of nondiscrimination " Bush like-
wise should appoint a presidential commission to examine contemporary ob-
stacles to minority opportunities, and to recommend within a specified time
period legislation designed to eradicate those obstacles. This effort should be
similar to that which preceded the development of the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act of 1967. By establishing this Economic Mobility Commis-
sion Bush would lay the groundwork for opening far more opportunities for
economically disadvantaged minorities than would the Kennedy/Hawkins
bill.
4) Strengthen Damage Provisions of the Civil Rights Act. Under the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, an employer found guilty of discrimination need only pro-
vide a job and back pay to the aggrieved party. This penalty is not sufficient to
deter future discrimination. To remedy this, Bush should propose to Congress
18
amendments to the law to allow recovery of treble punitive damages against
employers who willfully or persistently violate the law.
5) Propose a Comprehensive Welfare Reform. Congress in 1988 enacted
the Family Support Act. Touted as a major reform of the welfare system that
would reduce welfare dependency, the legislation in fact is little more than an
expansion of existing programs. Moreover, a Congressional Budget Office
analysis of the statute predicts that it will actually add people to the welfare
rolls.
Bush should explain to Americans that there will be no progress in the war
against poverty until there is a change in the strategy used to fight the war. He
should assemble a cabinet-level task force, led by Housing and Urban Devel-
opment Secretary Jack Kemp, to develop a comprehensive series of welfare
reforms to promote the empowerment of poor Americans.
6) Coordinate Empowerment Efforts. The beginning of an empowerment
infrastructure already exists. In addition to public policy organizations dedi-
cated to self-help, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp
and Education Secretary Lauro Cavazos are pushing empowerment strategies
in their agencies. In Congress, Representative Steve Bartlett, the Texas Re-
publican, has formed an empowerment caucus comprised of conservative and
moderate Republicans. And the moderate Democratic Leadership Council
last month endorsed a policy plank calling for equal opportunity rather than
equal results. These developments reflect a growing determination among
conservatives to confront civil rights issues, and a growing receptivity to what
conservatives have to say.
Outside of Congress, organizations and individuals are showing what can
be accomplished by poor Americans if they are given the opportunity to use
the capacities they have. The public housing tenant management movement,
for example, has brought dignity and hope to dozens of once crime-ridden
and blighted projects. An education reform movement has spawned more
than 300 new black independent schools, most of them created by parents
and community groups in poor neighborhoods. Robert Woodson's National
Center for Neighborhood Enterprise has helped to highlight the successes of
numerous additional empowerment efforts nationwide, and provided techni-
cal assistance to self-help groups in minority communities. And the National
Association of the Southern Poor, headed by Donald Anderson, has carried
the self-help message to rural Southern communities, sparking a rejuvenation
of formerly crime-ridden and depressed communities.
George Bush needs to draw greater attention to the movement for minority
empowerment. He needs to give this movement at least equal standing in the
debate over civil rights, and to instruct agency officials to do likewise. As long
as the perception exists that only minority leaders espousing the tired liberal
agenda are legitimate spokesmen for black and Hispanic Americans, the eco-
nomic emancipation of these groups will be painfully slow.
7) Repeal the Davis Bacon Act. The 1931 Davis Bacon Act is the federal
equivalent of local Jim Crow laws that prevent minorities from competing for
19
economic opportunities. The law's requirements that federal construction
contracts pay the "local prevailing wage" inflates wage rates. The result: many
small minority firms that cannot afford to pay such inflated rates are excluded
from government construction contracts. The law also discriminates against
minority tradesmen who are willing to work for less than union wages. In fact
discriminating against black workers seems to have been one of the reasons
for passing the 1931 law. Said Alabama Congressman Miles Allgood during
the February 28, 1931, floor debate on the bill, "That contractor has cheap
colored labor and it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white
labor
This
bill
has
merit
it is very important that we enact this mea-
43
sure.
Despite its devastating impact on black firms and tradesmen, and its effect
of increasing federal construction costs by $1.5 billion annually, the 60-year-
old Davis Bacon Act remains law. The reason: Congress refuses to abolish it
out of fear of offending organized labor. George Bush should launch a cam-
paign to convince Congress to repeal the Act. As part of this effort, he should
instruct Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole and other appropriate executive
branch agencies to conduct a thorough examination of the Act's impact on mi-
norities. Bush should make repeal of the Davis Bacon Act the centerpiece of
his civil rights strategy to eliminate the remaining vestiges of America's Jim
Crow laws.
8) Require that Congress be Subject to Civil Rights Laws. Congress rou-
tinely exempts itself from the laws it passes, including the nation's major civil
rights statutes. Although the executive branch is subject to the provisions of
the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Congress is not. Thus the 37,000 employees of the
legislative branch are without the civil rights protection guaranteed to all
other Americans. This has led some observers to describe Congress as the
"last plantation." Undeterred, however, Congress is attempting to exempt it-
self from new civil rights laws. The Kennedy/Hawkins bill, for example, fails
to require that Congress comply with its provisions.
George Bush, in his May 17 Rose Garden speech, called on Congress to
apply to itself all existing and proposed civil rights laws. This is sound policy.
Bush should hold Congress to that standard, and refuse to sign any civil rights
bill that fails to subject Congress to its provisions.
43 Congressional Record - House, February 28, 1931, p. 6513.
20
CONCLUSION
In his February testimony before the Senate Labor and Human Resources
Committee, Harvard's Glenn Loury summed up the current civil rights chal-
lenge:
Today the nation faces a challenge different in
character though perhaps no less severe in degree
than that which occasioned the civil rights
revolution. It is important, though, to be clear about
just what that challenge is, and what it is not. The
bottom stratum of the black community has
compelling problems which can no longer be
blamed solely on white racism, which will not yield
to protest marches or court orders, and which force
us to confront disquieting aspects of lower class
black urban society. The profound alienation of the
ghetto poor from mainstream American life has
continued to grow worse in the years since the
triumphs of the civil rights movement, even as the
successes of that movement has provided the basis
for an impressive expansion of economic and
political power of the black middle class. Finding
ways to effectively address the problems of the
inner-city poor, of all races, is the challenge which
confronts us today. 44
The abandonment of employment and educational objectivity and the re-
flexive use of quotas exacerbate racism and fail to address the serious prob-
lems faced by America's truly underclass. What is needed are efforts to con-
front remaining obstacles so that minorities can take advantage of the oppor-
tunities secured by the civil rights laws. The economic barriers separating mi-
norities from the American mainstream are the type of barriers that affirma-
tive action originally was intended to overcome: practical obstacles, some the
result of discrimination and some not, that prevented individuals from secur-
ing the opportunities promised by civil rights laws. By pursuing an affirmative
action strategy of redressing problems of economic mobility and human capi-
tal development, the unfinished business of the civil rights movement can be
completed.
Conservatives since the 1960s have consigned themselves to a marginal
role in the civil rights debate, acting as opponents to civil rights or passive by-
standers while liberals dictated the terms of the debate. Many civil rights poli-
cies of the past quarter century have failed to aid the most disadvantaged indi-
viduals in our society. These policies also have perpetuated racial divisions
44 Loury, op. cit.
21
among Americans. This dismal status quo can change only if conservatives re-
claim the moral high ground and assume a positive leadership role in civil
rights issues in the coming decade. This leadership can be achieved by pursu-
ing a strategy of vigorous law enforcement and individual empowerment.
Prepared for The Heritage Foundation by
Clint Bolick
Director, Landmark Legal Foundation Center for
Civil Rights
and
Mark B. Liedl
Director of Special Projects
The Heritage Foundation
All Heritage Foundation papers are now available electronically to subscribers of the "NEXIS" on-line data
retrieval service. The Heritage Foundation's Reports (HFRPTS) can be found in the OMNI, CURRNT, NWLTRS,
and GVT group files of the NEXIS library and in the GOVT and OMNI group files of the GOVNWS library.
22
FROM: HUD PD&R WASH DC
TO:
2024566218
FEB 19, 1991 5:30PM #198 P.01
91 FEB 19 P5: 34
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND RESEARCH
IMMEDIATE OFFICE
TELECOPIER COVER SHEET
Feb. 19,1991
DATE
NUMBER OF PAGES (INCLUDING THIS PAGE)
11
TO: Mary Kate Grant
FROM Tom Hambert
HUD
PHONE:
PHONE: 708-3896
FAX NUMBER: 456-6318
SUBJECT:
THE PHONE NUMBER FOR THIS FAX MACHINE IS (202) 619-8000
FROM: HUD PD&R WASH DC
TO:
2024566218
FEB 19, 1991 5:30PM #198 P.02
DEPARTMENT AND U.S. "I want URBAN to help EVELOPMENT OFHOLUSING OF and child
every
man,
woman,
share
the
American
Dream."
Jack Kemp
July 10, 1989
F.ROM:HUD PD&R WASH DC
TO:
2024566218
FEB 19, 1991 5:30PM #198 P.03
Ladies and gentleman, I'm honored and thrilled to be here
with you at the annual NAACP convention. On this eightieth
birthday of your founding, I'm proud to share the dais with your
fellow warriors in the continuing battle for civil rights. I'm
proud to share this moment with you and with Mrs. Aminda Wilkins,
with your Chairman of the Board, Dr. William Gibson; with
Nathaniel Colley, who chairs your Special Contributions Fund;
with Mrs. Enolia McMillan, President of the National Board; with
your Vice Chairman, Rev. Edward Hailes, with Mrs. Myrlie Evers,
who is presiding; with Hazel Dukes of the New York State NAACP
and Dan Acker of the Buffalo NAACP; with Althea Simmons, Director
of the NAACP's Washington Bureau, and of course, with your
Executive Director, Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks.
I want to thank Ben Hooks for that warm and generous
introduction. I want to thank him, too, for the unstinting
leadership he has delivered to your organization and
our
country
in the march for liberty and justice.
Thirty-two years ago this month, I came to Detroit as the
17th round draft choice. It's good to be back.
his early support Ben, I might not be Secretary of HUD. without When
And frankly, folks, if it weren't for Ben Hooks
people were wondering what kind of a Secretary I might be, he
said I was a liberal with a big 'L' on relations between the
races.
And, Ben, I won't let you down!
A few days ago, Ben came by my office to talk about a
national campaign styled somewhat after the "clean-up, paint-up,
fix-up" programs common to many local communities. He mentioned
that the Detroit Baptist Council has such a program, that the
Baltimore Afro-American newspaper has such a program, and that in
Charlotte, North Carolina, there is a massive clean-up program
with hundreds of citizens clearing the shoulders of the
expressway - a major campaign for cleanliness.
Well, I agreed that we should start working with Ben Hooks
and the NAACP to make this a national project, and right now, I
am announcing that the planning for this program will start
immediately. Through this and similar efforts, religious groups,
civic groups, labor unions, old, young, teenagers, and all kinds
of community organizations can be involved in a massive effort to
make our neighborhoods more liveable. I want HUD to work with
them and with you to do it. Let's start with those 15,000
and Labor to work with us.
abandoned houses in Detroit; and let's get GM, Ford, Chrysler,
On the day President Bush nominated me, I was proud to
choose as my motto the beautiful words Martin Luther King
expressed upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. He said he had
an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the
FROM: HUD PD&R WASH DC
TO:
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FEB 19, 1991 5:31PM #198 P.04
2
future of mankind." I, too, have that audacious faith in the
future of mankind.
What a thrill it was the other day to sit next to Ben Hooks
at the White House, as President Bush and distinguished civil
rights leaders and Members of Congress celebrated the 25th
anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a milestone on the
road to freedom and justice. You helped lay that milestone.
Vernon Jordan, John Jacob, John Lewis, Joseph Lowery, Jesse
Jackson, Floyd McKissick, and Martin Luther King III were there,
too; and what an honor it was to meet the great lady of
inspiration, Rosa Parks, in the East Room ceremony.
I couldn't help thinking that the modern civil rights
movement really started in earnest nine years before the '64 Act.
It started on Cleveland Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama, on
December 1, 1955 when a local official of the NAACP, Rosa Parks,
said she just wasn't about to move to the back of that bus. That
was a profoundly courageous thing she did, and it helped inspire
sweeping changes in the South and throughout America.
Ben, I've always admired the wisdom of your thought, the
eloquent clarity of your ideas -- as so well expressed in the
words I read in last month's issue of Crisis. You wrote:
"America can only be great if she extends to all of her citizens
a chance to make a difference, an opportunity to make a
significant contribution to the collective good
Those words crystallize our challenge! A chance to make a
difference. An opportunity to contribute to the collective good.
This is the American quest. In one simple, yet profound,
statement, Ben Hooks has captured its meaning. He has defined
our quest
our common objective.
That objective has been ennobled by the lives of patriots
and martyrs, by students and workers, by black and white. It has
been bought dearly by the sacrifices of those who came before us.
Martin Luther King, writing from the Birmingham jail,
personified those sacrifices. He said the civil rights
protesters "were in reality standing up for what is best in the
Judaeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to
those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the
founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the
Declaration of Independence."
Ladies and gentlemen, they sacrificed so we might succeed.
The road we travel to basic human rights, to dignity and justice,
has been carved through the wilderness of ignorance and bigotry,
of racism and prejudice. Our way was cleared by the sweat and
blood of our ancestors. And by so many people in this room. The
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3
road we follow was laid out by Thomas Jefferson and Crispus
Attucks, by Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, by Hubert
Humphrey and Martin Luther King. It was paved and advanced by
DuBois and White and Wilkins.
We're following that same road today
Ben, you, me. Men
and women of good will everywhere. It's never an easy journey,
but we'll keep on going until we reach our destination until we
reach that blessed America so many have struggled, fought, and
died for.
We're going to keep on that road. We dare not leave it.
For the road to freedom and justice is not yet complete. Our job
is to complete it not just for ourselves but for those who
come after us -- for your children and mine.
Finishing that job
traveling and advancing that
road
that is our greatest challenge. For this is the Glory
Road
the road that leads to a truly great America in which none
are left out
no one is left behind
and all have a chance to
contribute. We're going to meet that challenge
we're going to
complete this Glory Road by shaping an America that offers each
of us
every man, woman, and child
the freedom to reach the
outermost limits of our capabilities.
This is a momentous time in our Nation's history. It's our
chance to take what our forefathers knew America could
become
to take that idea, that dream, that promise
and
transform the promise into reality for all.
We can do it. We must do it. We must extend that road into
every ghetto and barrio, into every impoverished corner in urban
and rural America. We can open that road to those left out or
left behind. We can clear the way so they, too, may follow that
road to hope and dreams, to self-determination, to opportunity,
homeownership, and economic independence.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a believer. I believe we can
build that Glory Road. I believe that, working together, we will
build it.
We can build it because we know the way. It's clearly laid
out for us. America's Glory Road has been well-marked by the
signposts of history.
Just think. Two hundred and thirteen years ago last week,
Thomas Jefferson wrote the immortal words: "We hold these truths
to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;
happiness that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
FROM: HUD PD&R WASH DC
TO:
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4
Some people thought those words were written for white
folks. But they were written for all folks. Some thought they
were written just for Americans. But they were written for all
people. Some thought they were written for one moment in
history. But they were written for all time.
Those words inspired not only the students in Selma, but the
students in Beijing. Not only factory workers in America, but
factory workers in Poland. They inspired not only the struggle
for civil rights for blacks in America, but the fight for
democracy and human rights for blacks in South Africa.
Those words have guided our country throughout the course of
its history. We accept them not simply as an ideal, but as a
worthy and realistic goal; recognizing, all the same, that it is
a goal we have yet to achieve in full for all our people.
More than a century and a quarter ago, Abraham Lincoln
engaged in a magnificent debate with the "Little Giant," Senator
Stephen Douglas. In what became known as the "Peoria speech,"
Lincoln said:
"I cannot but hate slavery. I hate it because of the
monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it
deprives our American example of its just influence in the world;
enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to
taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to
doubt our sincerity; and especially because it forces so many
good men among ourselves into an open war with the very
fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the
Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right
principle of action but self-interest
I object to it because it
assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man
by another we began by declaring that all men are created
equal; but now, from that beginning, we have run down to the
other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a
`sacred right of self-government.' These principles cannot stand
together. They are as opposite as God and Mammon.'
Lincoln's eloquence
his thorough understanding of the
fundamental moral imperative underlying the issue
was
formidable. And, do you know what Douglas did? He capitulated.
He begged for a truce, saying: "Lincoln, you understand this
question of prohibiting slavery
better than all the opposition
in the Senate of the United States. I cannot make anything by
debating it with you.
Freedom. An inalienable right. An idea so powerful that
the "Little Giant" was forced to concede the issue and begged for
a truce.
In the nineteenth century, a house divided against itself,
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TO:
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5
half free and half slave, could not stand. And today we cannot
allow our nation to stand divided between prosperity and poverty.
How can we tell the world that democracy and freedom work, if we
can't make them work for those left out and left behind in
America?
Freedom and justice are never easily won.
That's why we needed the NAACP eighty years ago. And that's
why we need the NAACP today: to make America live up to itself.
Through your efforts, our country has made great strides in basic
human rights.
You helped pass the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act.
You helped abolish municipal housing segregation ordinances. And
you brought an end to school segregation.
The NAACP successfully pushed for the Open Housing Act and
other fair housing laws, including the one passed last year. I
want to thank Ben Hooks and Althea Simmons, the Director of the
NAACP's Washington bureau, who worked so hard to get it passed.
I have the duty and the privilege of administering those laws
and, only a few days ago, I brought the first charge of racial
discrimination under the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988.
I want you to know that President Bush will not tolerate
housing discrimination. And neither will I.
The boycotts, the sit-ins, the marches, the legal
challenges
all punctuated a message of moral outrage -- a
message that became a testament of fierce commitment to freedom
and justice. You were there then and you are here now,
continuing the struggle.
I wasn't there, but I wish I had been.
The 1950's and 60's were an awesome period of expanding
civil and human rights in American history -- a time of powerful
and necessary changes in the law. It was the dramatic high point
of Chapter One in the struggle for civil rights.
Chapter One was written by those who led the fight for basic
human rights, for legal rights, voting rights. It was written by
Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Whitney Young. It was
written by Andy Young, Morris Abram, Ella Baker, and John Lewis.
It was written by Fred Shuttlesworth and Ralph Abernathy, by
Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins. By Vernon Jordan, John Jacob,
Dr. Leon Sullivan, Ben Hooks
and so many of you here.
Chapter One is a proud part of our country's history
chapter of commitment and sacrifice, of determination to achieve
justice and equality for all our people. But, Chapter One would
FROM: HUD PD&R WASH DC
TO:
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6
not have been possible without the work begun 80 years ago by the
NAACP. The relentless drive for freedom and justice has lived
within us for as long as history can recall; but this chapter was
largely written by those who joined forces in 1909 to forge an
alliance against racism
and by all of you who followed in their
footsteps.
Chapter One was about freedom and justice, about removing
legal barriers, about full rights for each and every one of us as
American citizens.
And, I must give credit to some great leaders of the
Democratic Party who were marching at the head of the civil
rights revolution in the '60s when many in the party of Lincoln
were nowhere to be found. But I'd be remiss not to say that the
Republican Party's roots were not dug by Herbert Hoover. The
Republican Party began as a great civil rights movement in the
1850s that included breakaway Democrats, anti-slavery Whigs,
abolitionists and Free-soilers. Abe Lincoln called it the
Republican Party to remind folks that it was an extension of
Thomas Jefferson's old Democratic/Republican Party. As Tony
Brown's Journal has recalled, the radical Republicans were the
best friends blacks had during Reconstruction, and I hope a
modern-day radical Republican Party competes effectively for the
minority vote.
President Bush and I look forward to the day when both major
political parties compete for the votes of African-Americans. we
must remind people that the entire civil rights revolution is the
continuing saga of the first American Revolution.
And now, at the dawn of a new millennium, we are engaged in
a new chapter of this ongoing revolution, for as you in the NAACP
have said BO well, "The Struggle Continues."
Let us dedicate this chapter to realizing the dream of
homeownership
of opportunity
of prosperity
for everyone.
That's what HOPE spells.
This chapter is about economic prosperity, about jobs for
everyone, and growth, and a bigger pie and more seats at the
table.
And this chapter is about more than that. Not only about a
chance to drive a truck, but a chance to own the truck not just
a chance to have a job, but a chance to own the company
not
only a chance to live in decent and drug-free public housing but
a chance to homestead and manage, and, ultimately, own the
housing.
And, as we move into Chapter Two, we need to know how far we
have come so we may appreciate how far we have yet to go.
PROM: HUD PD&R WASH DC
TO:
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FEB 19, 1991 5:34PM #198 P.09
7
It's a good sign that some 40 percent of black American
households are considered middle income, a category that has
grown by more than 25 percent during the recent economic
expansion. The receipts of black American businesses have been
growing at an average rate of eight percent every year since
1982. Over 2.5 million new jobs have been filled by black
Americans in the last five to six years.
Yet, clearly, this is not enough. It only serves to remind
us how far we have to go. Over half a century ago, Franklin D.
Roosevelt saw one-third of a nation ill-clad, ill-housed, and
ill-fed. By 1987, the GNP had increased eightfold; and still --
56 years after FDR's statement -- one-third of black Americans
remained below the official poverty line
ill-clad, ill-housed,
ill-fed.
According to the Good Shepherd (Matt. 25:40) those who
"inherit the kingdom" are those who feed, clothe, and house "the
least of these my brothers."
Well, our American economic growth has not yet reached the
least of our brothers and sisters. We must reach the least, the
lost, and the last that's what we must do in Chapter Two. As
my Chief of Staff, Wendell Gunn, says, "We've got the ticket.
After 200 years we can finally get on the train. Now let's get
the train moving.'
That's what President Bush wants to do and wants me to do at
HUD. We want to get the train of growth in jobs and opportunity
for decent and affordable housing moving through Watts and Boyle
Heights, through Newark and Bed-Stuy, through Liberty City and
Vine City, through Overtown and Motown
through every place
where the least, the lost, and the last need to get on that
train.
That's why I'm proud to be in the President's Cabinet,
because he wants to create an "opportunity society an
economy,"
he said, "that's thriving and creating jobs; cities that are
filled with enterprise and offer residents a good life and a good
living; neighborhoods that are vibrant and safe, with affordable
houses going up; old ones being restored.'
President Bush said, "it means giving people -- working
people, poor people, all our citizens -- control over their own
lives. And it means a commitment to civil rights and economic
opportunity for every American."
I'm proud to accept that mission because those are exactly
my goals, as well. And I want you to know that even though the
President is in Poland today
he is here because I'm here to say
it for him.
FROM:HUD PD&R WASH DC
TO:
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8
And I promise you what I promised him. We are going to
reform HUD from top to bottom. We are going to make our programs
work for the people in need, not those motivated by greed.
Saturday night, I had the honor to speak to the League of
United Latin American Citizens, LULAC. I shared a story with
them that I'd like to share with you. This is a lesson I learned
from Luis Munoz Marin, the great governor of Puerto Rico, the
leader of the Popular Democratic Party, and the originator of
Operation Bootstrap. When his political party was out of power,
he used to talk about the need to redistribute wealth among the
people, to slice the loaf so everyone gets a piece in the name of
social justice. But, when he became Governor of Puerto Rico, he
soon realized that if all he had to distribute was the same loaf
of bread, the slices would get pretty thin before too long. He
realized what he needed weren't just better ways to slice that
one loaf, what was really needed was to create new bakeries.
That's what we must do -- create more bakeries in the
ghettoes and barrios all over America.
We can start by passing enterprise zones now, so we can
begin the process of "green-lining" the inner city areas for
entrepreneurship and jobs areas that have been "red-lined" for
despair. Enterprise zones can help unleash the creative energies
of minority entrepreneurs in the urban areas of America to create
opportunity for those who have been left behind. I will work
closely with the Congress to ensure its passage so we can replace
pockets of poverty with jobs and opportunity.
In 1929, on the eve of the Great Depression, blacks owned
65,000 businesses nationwide. I am struck by the number --
65,000 black owned businesses because, as John Jacob tells us
in The State of Black America 1989, there were just 301,000
black-owned businesses in 1982.
As I told Coretta and Dexter King at Paschal's Restaurant in
Atlanta -- on the day after my swearing-in -- we must commit
America to doubling or tripling that number by the middle of the
next decade.
Enterprise zones will be of little help in doing that if
there is no capital available to invest in new businesses in the
zones. The people who cannot afford high capital gains taxes are
not the rich, ladies and gentlemen. Capital gains taxes have
their most important effect on people's power to find "seed corn"
to start up new businesses.
Publisher John Johnson, a true entrepreneur, just wrote a
deeply inspiring book called Succeeding Against the Odds. The
seed capital he needed to begin publishing in 1942 amounted to
just $500 so near, yet so far. Unable to get a loan from
Chicago's biggest bank, his only solution came from his mom who
PROM: PD&R WASH DC
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9
put up her new furniture as collateral for a $500 loan from a
small thrift. So risky was that venture that Mrs. Johnson prayed
and cried for days before she felt she could take the chance on
losing every piece of furniture she had.
Not every potential entrepreneur is lucky enough to have a
mom with even $500 worth of furniture to put up. But somebody
has to invest the seed corn when an idea-rich but money-poor man
or woman in a ghetto or barrio wants to imitate the John Johnsons
and Mr. Paschals by putting their dreams to work. And that
somebody should not be stopped because the capital gains tax is
too high to make the risk worth taking.
In his book John Johnson says of success in business, "Can
it be done again? "Yes," he says, "it can be done again. I
could do it again. So could you. So could any man or woman who
comes up with an idea that provides a service no one else is
meeting and who is willing to subordinate everything to the idea
and the dream."
If we are ever going to turn the page -- if we are ever
going to begin Chapter Two in earnest -- if we are serious about
unlocking the door to opportunity -- we have to unlock the seed
capital for black and hispanic and minority and women's
enterprises. We must convince Congress to cut the capital gains
tax to fifteen percent nationwide and to eliminate it in our
rural and urban enterprise zones.
We can also help entrepreneurs with another incentive. I
strongly support Congressman Charlie Rangel's proposal to give
investors an upfront tax deduction for the first $100,000 they
put into enterprise zone businesses.
There is more we can do. We need to increase the earned
income tax credit to hold down the enormous effective marginal
tax rates on the poor just struggling to get on the first rung of
that ladder of opportunity. The supplemental earned income tax
credit would give eligible families a credit to supplement their
earnings. There should be no tax on workers' wages up to 160 or
170 percent of the poverty level.
As you can see, I favor using the tax code to achieve
socially desirable goals and what's more socially desirable
than jobs and adequate, decent, and affordable housing for low-
income Americans? I think the low-income housing tax credit fits
that "desirable" criterion. It expires this year; but I'm
pleased that it has bipartisan support, and I'm working with
Congressman Rangel and Senator Mitchell to extend it and make it
work better for low-income people and low-income communities.
And, there's another extremely valuable tool available right
now, the Community Reinvestment Act. In March, 1978, the
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10
Comptroller's office approved the first non-profit Community
Development Corporation, dedicated to the "revitalization of
inner-city residential neighborhoods." Today, more than 130
banks are investing in communities sponsoring low- and moderate-
income housing.
This month, the Comptroller will make public all information
on all lending decisions which involve CRA-related conditional
approvals, denials and CRA protests. This will enable the public
-- you -- to help the Comptroller's office scrutinize bank
practices to insure that the Community Reinvestment Act is being
complied with. I strongly support this Act and all efforts to
end, once and for all, the disgrace of red-lining in America. We
must encourage the flow of seed capital and lending to develop
our low-income communities and to produce low-income housing. We
want to encourage investment by banks and thrifts and pension
plans -- profit and non-profit -- with Federal, State and local
support.
These are some of the ideas we're working on at HUD and
within the Administration to extend jobs, opportunity and hope to
every American. But those are not the only ideas. I've had a
look at your plan for the year 2000 and beyond, and it calls for:
*
developing and implementing programs to increase black
homeownership and home retention among blacks;
increasing black family wealth from its presently
disproportionate low level;
increasing black self-employment;
*
ensuring that substantial numbers of blacks are employed
in growth industries and occupations;
and there are other proposals.
I have one problem with this plan. Why wait for the year
2000? I want to start now.
I want to help the NAACP integrate the economy. I want to
help every man, woman, and child share the American Dream.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have to tell you something.
I wasn't there when Rosa Parks integrated the buses. I
wasn't there when the students integrated the lunch counters. I
wasn't there when the schools were integrated. I wasn't there at
the Lincoln Memorial, when Dr. King spoke of "the dream."
But, I'm here now.
Let's get started!
FEB-21-91 THU 16:26
P.01
1111
Facsimile Transmission
Cities
in
91 FEB 21 P4:27
Schools, Inc.
DATE: 2/21/91
TO: Marykate Grant
FROM: Surah Decamp
RE: FYI- - into an CI$,
REMARKS:
This oped run in the Feb. 18 Washington
Post. It is written by Del Lewis -
a CIS boardmember and President ceog
CtP Telephone. H was written in response
to a Raspberry column. Ithaught you might
be interested. Del Lewis is aresident of
the D.C.+ is a key CIS board member who is
black.
NUMBER OF PAGES TO FOLLOW: 1
1023 15th Street, N.W., Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20005
#
Telephone Number: (202) 861 0230
Facsimile Number: (202) 289-6642
P.02
FEB-21-91
the Washington Post
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1991
Delano E. Lewis
Society and Schools:
The Team System
William Raspberry's column" 'What
people and their families. The reposi-
Cities In Schools is aware of the
It Takes' to Deliver Social Services"
tioned personnel function as a team,
danger to local leadership posed by
[op-ed, Jan. 30] delivered a message to
so all information is shared, and each
constant reliance on government re-
all of us who are concerned with
student's needs are examined in rela-
sources. To counteract this, CIS has
America's social problems. It is not,
tion to his or her overall situation.
evolved two important guidelines: all
Raspberry asserts, that America has
This team process also "models" for
CIS programs must rely primarily on
stopped caring about poor people,
youngsters a way of cooperating and
private sector leadership, especially
small children or troubled families.
working together-a model often
from the businesses that are part of
Rather, we have become painfully
sadly lacking in their communities.
the school system's community, and
aware that isolated "programs" simply
The 50 Cities In Schools programs
each CIS program is formed as a pri-
don't alleviate the problems they are
currently operational across the coun-
vately incorporated organization inde-
designed to combat.
try served almost 30,000 young peo-
pendent of any authority outside the
Raspberry points with satisfaction
ple and their families last year. CIS
community itself. A local CIS board of
to a monograph just published by the
programs consistently report excel-
directors typically comprises educa-
Education and Human Services Con-
lent results in areas such as retention,
tors, religious leaders, health and so-
sortium that argues for the solution:
academic improvement and ameliora-
cial service providers, business per-
fragmented and depersonalized social
tion of behavior problems. The over-
sons, Private Industry Council
service programs must become con-
all goal of the CIS effort-reduction
members and community activities,
nected and collaborative. They must
and it is always chaired by a represen-
stop treating their clients as a collec-
tative from the private sector. Thus
tion of unrelated problems and begin
to see them holistically as human be-
'In the long run,
the board members are stakeholders
and have a vested interest in seeing
ings, so that "a truly seamless web of
'parachuting in the
the effort succeed.
services" may be woven for them.
This approach ensures that the com-
I first heard this message almost
experts' may no
munity will assume responsibility for
20 years ago from a man named Bill
solving its children's problems-and it
Milliken. He is now the president of
Cities In Schools Inc. (CIS), the na-
longer be
also provides a model for community
empowerment. In the long run, "para-
tion's largest non-profit dropout pre-
vention program, and since 1986 I
necessary."
chuting in the experts" may no longer
be necessary, and the crippling reli-
have had the privilege of serving on
ance on paternalistic "helping" can be
CIS's national board of directors.
of the dropout rate for these youth-
brought to an end.
Reading Raspberry's column was in
is well within reach. But Milliken
Bill Milliken has worked for more
some respects an eerie experience,
emphasizes that any social problem
than 30 years in disadvantaged com-
because Milliken and the dedicated
can be effectively addressed with this
munities, and his reflections are som-
staff of Cities In Schools have been
same combination of coordinated so-
ber and important for us to understand.
singing the same song loud and clear
cial services and personalized team-
"Since World War II," he says, "our
for many years-and it appears that
building to help those at risk-the
sense of community has deteriorated.
the nation is now ready to listen.
very model that Raspberry and the
Religious institutions and extended
Miltiken and CIS argue that most
Education and Human Services Con-
families used to be the mediating struc-
social services for "at-risk" youth are
sortium endorse.
ture of any healthy community. Now, in
already in place-but they are in the
"Ultimately," says Milliken, "we're
many areas, that's no longer true. In a
wrong place. As Raspberry and the
talking about institutional change, a
way, the schools are the last place left
consortium note, students and their
change in the way society views its
for a community to rally behind. But in
families are asked to seek out the help
problems. We've got to stop encour-
the process, we wind up asking schools,
they so badly need-health care, drug
aging, even rewarding, competition be-
and teachers, to do so much more than
rehabilitation, career planning-from a
tween helping agencies. Collaboration
they're able to do. The only effective
confusing variety of disconnected agen-
should be the aim; both government
solution is to reorganize and empower
cies scattered throughout a typical
and private philanthropies have to be-
the community around the school, to
community. The consortium's mono-
gin putting their resources behind co-
make it a rallying point and to bring
graph points out that to expect troubled
operative efforts instead of demanding
community resources into the schools."
youth or their parents to negotiate this
that social service groups with differ-
I can only hope that more and more
maze "is truly to ask the impossible."
ent agendas engage in a destructive
individuals in our communities, busi-
Bill Milliken puts it this way: "You'd
fight for the few funds available."
nesses and government alike, will hear
need a PhD in systems to figure it out.
The CIS approach has another virtue,
Milliken's and Raspberry's message.
/couldn't do it. How can I expect it of
which is also directly pertinent to Rasp-
We haven't stopped caring, nor have
a young kid who's about to drop out?"
berry's column. "If I have any criticism
we run out of resources to help trou-
CIS instead reverses this process and
of this excellent paper [the Consortium
bled families. Whether it is through our
brings repositioned social service pro-
monograph]," he writes, "it is that it
educational support efforts at C&P
viders into the school itself, where
focuses almost exclusively in improving
Telephone or through organizations
they can serve alongside teachers in
the delivery of government services and
like Cities In Schools, I am convinced
the battle to give young people educa-
hardly at all on the importance of
business must be an active partner.
tion, direction and hope.
strengthening communities in order to
This approach emphasizes building
prevent or ameliorate problems before
The writer is president and chief
personal relationships with young
they come to agency attention."
executive officer of C&P Telephone.