Equality Now - The President Has the Power

[keepCAblue]

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s letter to newly-elected president, John F. Kennedy, published in "The Nation", February 4, 1961. Dr. King's vision for a more inclusive America, and the role played by the President and the federal government, stands as a model that can and should be implemented even today.

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THE NEW Administration has the opportunity to be the first in one hundred years of American history to adopt a radically new approach to the question of civil rights. It must begin, however, with the firm conviction that the principle is no longer in doubt. The day is past for tolerating vicious and inhuman opposition on a subject which determines the lives of 20,000,000 Americans. We are no longer discussing the wisdom of democracy over monarchism—and we would not permit hoodlum royalists to terrorize the streets of our major cities or the legislative halls of our states. We must decide that in a new era, there must be new thinking. If we fail to make this positive decision, an awakening world will conclude that we have become a fossil nation, morally and politically; and no floods of refrigerators, automobiles or color TV sets will rejuvenate our image.

The second element in a new approach is the recognition by the federal government that it has sufficient power at its disposal to guide us through the changes ahead. The intolerably slow pace of civil rights is due at least as much to the limits which the federal government has imposed on its own actions as it is to the actions of the segregationist opposition.

If we examine the total of all judicial, executive and legislative acts of the past three decades and balance them against the sum needed to achieve fundamental change, two startling conclusions are inescapable. The first is the hopeless inadequacy of measures adopted—pitifully insufficient in scope and limited in conception. The second conclusion is even more disturbing. Federal action has been not only inadequate; viewed as a whole, it has also been self-nullifying. In 1954, the Supreme Court declared school segregation to be unconstitutional. Yet, since then federal executive agencies and vast federal legislative programs have given millions of dollars yearly to educational institutions which continue to violate the Supreme Court decision.

FURTHER, the federal government collects taxes from all citizens, Negro and white, which it is Constitutionally obligated to use for the benefit of all; yet, billions of these tax dollars have gone to support housing programs and hospital and airport construction in which discrimination is an open and notorious practice. Private firms which either totally exclude Negroes from the work force, or place them in discriminatory status, receive billions of dollars annually in government contracts. The federal government permits elections and seats representatives in its legislative chambers in disregard of the fact that millions of Negro citizens have no vote. It directly employs millions in its various agencies and departments; yet its employment practices, especially in Southern states, are rife with discrimination.

These illustrations can be multiplied many times. The shocking fact is that while the government moves sluggishly, and in patchwork fashion, to achieve equal rights for all citizens, in the daily conduct of its own massive economic and social activities it participates directly and indirectly in the denial of these rights. We must face the tragic fact that the federal government is the nation's highest investor in segregation.

Thereofre, a primary goal of a well-meaning Administration should be a thorough examination of its own operations and the development of a rigorous program to wipe out immediately every vestige of federal support and sponsorship of discrimination. Such a program would serve not only to attach the problem centrally, where results can be produced, but collaterally to educate and influence the whole American populace, especially in the Deep South of massive resistance. It would also be the first step in the evolution of federal leadership to guide the entire nation to its new democratic goals.

THERE is impressive precedent in recent history for massive governmental mobilization to create new conditions. As a consequence of economic crisis in the early thirties, the federal government, under the leadership of President Kennedy's party, undertook to change fundamental economic relationships. Every person in the nation was affected. In a bewilderingly brief period, wages were regulated at new levels, unemployment insurance created, relief agencies set up, public works planned and executed Regulatory legislation covering banking, the stock market and money market was immediately enacted. Laws protecting trade-union organization were brought into being and administrative agencies to interpret and enforce the labor laws were created. Along with this broad assault on the depression went an educational campain to facilitate the changes in public psychology requisite to the acceptance of such formidable alternatives to old thought patterns. The nation which five years earlier viewed federal intervention on any level as collectivism or socialism, in amazingly swift transition, supported the new role of government as appropriate and justified.

These breathtaking, fundamental changes took place because a leadership emerged that was both determined and bold, that rejected inhibitions imposed by old traditions and habits. It utilized all agencies and organs of government in a massive drive to change a situation which imperiled the very existence of our society.

Viewed in this light, an Administration with good will, sincerely desirous of eliminating discrimination from American life, could accomplish its goal by mobilizing the immense resources of the organs of government and throwing them into every area where the problem appears. There are at least three vital areas in which the President can work to bring about effective solutions.

First, there is the legislative area. The President could take the offensive, despite Southern opposition, by fighting for a really far-reaching legislative program. With resolute Presidential leadership, a majority in both houses could be persuaded to pass meaningful laws. A determined majority-party leadership possesses the means to carry the reluctant along—and to hasten the end of the political careers, or the privileges, of those who prove unyielding. The influence the President can exert upon Congress when, with crusading zeal, he summons support from the nation has been demonstrated more than once in the past.

AN EXAMPLE of an area in which a vigorous President could significantly influence Congress is that of voter registration. The Civil Rights Commission has revealed that "many Negro American citizens find it difficult, and often impossible, to vote." It went on to assert that these voting denials are accomplished through the creation of legal impediments, administrative obstacles and the fear of economic reprisal and physical harm. A truly decisive President would work passionately and unrelentingly to change these shameful conditions. He would take such a creative general proposal as that made by the Civil Rights Commission of 1959 on Federal Registrars to insure the right to vote, and would campaign "on the Hill" and across the nation until Congress acted. He would also have the courage to insist that, in compliance with the Fourteenth Amendment, a state's representation in Congress be reduced in proportion to the number of citizens denied the right to vote because of race .

This approach would help us eliminate the defeatist psychology engendered by the alliance of Dixiecrats and Northern reactionaries in Congress. The same alliance, existing in even greater strength, failed in the past to stop legislation that altered patterns just as deeply imbedded in American mores as racial discrimination. It is leadership and determination that counts—and these have been lacking of recent years.

A SECOND area in which the President can make a significant contribution toward the elimination of racial discrimination is that of moral persuasion. The President is the embodiment of the democratic personality of the nation, both domestically and internationally. His own personal conduct influences and educates. If he were to make it known that he would not participate in any activities in which segregation exists, he would set a clear example for Americans everywhere, of every age, on a simple, easily understood level.

The calling of White House conferences of Negro and white leaders could be extremely useful. The President could serve the great purpose of opening the channels of communication between the races. Many white Southerners who, for various reasons, fear to meet with Negro leaders in their own communities would participate unhesitatingly in a biracial conference called by the President.

It is appropriate to note here that, even in the hard core South, a small but growing number of whites are breaking with the old order. These people believe in the morality as well as the Constitutionality of integration. Their still, small voices often go unheard amid the louder shouts of defiance, but they are active in the field. They often face problems of ostracism and isolation as a result of their stand. Their isolation and difficulties would be lessened if they were among the invitees to the White House to participate in a conference on desegregation.

No effort to list the President's opportunities to use the prestige of his office to further civil rights could be adequate; from fireside chats to appearances at major events, the list is endless. All that is needed at the outset is a firm resolve to make the Presidency a weapon for this democratic objective; the opportunities would then arise by themselves.

BUT BEYOND the legislative area and the employment of Presidential prestige, a weapon of overwhelming significance lies in the Executive itself. It is no exaggeration to say that the President could give segregation its death blow through a stroke of the pen. The power inherent in Executive orders has never been exploited; its use in recent years has been microscopic in scope and timid in conception.

Historically, the Executive has promulgated orders of extraordinary range and significance. The Emancipation Proclamation was an Executive order. The integration of the Armed Forces grew out of President Truman's Executive Order 8891. Executive orders could require the immediate end to all discrimination in any housing accommodations financed with federal aid. Executive orders could prohibit any contractor dealing with any federal agency from practicing discrimination in employment by requiring (a) cancellation of existing contracts, (b) and/or barring violators from bidding, (c) and/or calling in of government loans of federal funds extended to violators, (d) and/or requiring renegotiation of payment to exact financial penalties where violations appear after performance of a contract. With such effective penalties, enforcement of fair employment practices would become self-imposed by those enjoying billions of dollars in contracts with federal agencies.

An Executive order could also bring an immediate end to the discriminatory employment policies of federal agencies and departments. It is no secret that, despite statutes to the contrary, Negroes are almost totally excluded from skilled, clerical and supervisory jobs in the federal government. A recent report of the President's Committee on Government Employment states: "That there is discrimination in federal employment is unquestionably true." A basic reason for this is that there have never been any sanctions imposed for violations of the law. In a real sense, a President can eliminate discrimination in federal employment, just as it was eliminated in the military services, by setting up adequately staffed committees with authority to punish those who violate official government policy from the inside.

We can easily see how an end to discriminatory practices in federal agencies would have tremendous value in changing attitudes and behavior patterns. If, for instance, the law-enforcement personnel in the FBI were integrated, many persons who now defy federal law might come under restraints from which they are presently free. If other law-enforcement agencies under the Treasury Department, such as the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Narcotics, the Alcohol Tax Unit, the Secret Service and Customs had an adequate number of field agents, investigators and administrators who were Negro, there would be a greater respect for Negroes as well as the assurance that prejudicial behavior in these agencies toward citizens would cease.

ANOTHER area in which an Executive order can bring an end to a considerable amount of discrimination is that of health and hospitalization. Under the Hill-Burton Act, the federal government grants funds to the states for the construction of hospitals. Since this program began in 1948, more than $100 million a year has gone to the states in direct aid. The government also makes grants to the states for mental health, maternal and child-care services, and for programs designed to control tuberculosis, cancer and heart disease. In spite of this sizable federal support, it is a known fact that most of the federally financed and approved health and hospitalization programs in the South are operated on a segregated basis. In many instances, the Southern Negroes are denied access to them altogether.

The President could wipe out these shameful conditions almost overnight by simply ordering his Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare not to approve grants to states whose plans authorize segregation or denial of service on the basis of race. This type of sanction would bring even the most recalcitrant Southerners into line.

There is hardly any area in which Executive leadership is needed more than in housing. Here the Negro confronts the most tragic expression of discrimination; he is consigned to ghettos and overcrowded conditions. And here the North is as guilty as the South.

Unfortunately, the federal government has participated directly and indirectly in the perpetuation of housing discrimination. Through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the Public Housing Administration (PHA), Urban Renewal Administration (URA), and the Veterans Administration Loan Program, the federal government makes possible most of the building programs in the United States. Since its creation in 1934, the FHA alone has insured more than $33 billion in mortgages involving millions of homes. As a result of PHA programs, more than two million people presently live in more than 2,000 low-rent housing projects in forty-four states and the District of Columbia. The URA, which was established in 1954 to help cities eliminate slum and blighted areas, has approved projects in more than 877 localities. The GI Bill of Rights authorizes the Veterans Administration to make loans outright to veterans for the construction of homes. This program has become so extensive that there have been years in which 30 per cent of all new urban dwelling units were built with the help of VA loan guarantees.

WHILE most of these housing programs have anti-discrimination clauses, they have done little to end segregated housing. It is a known fact that FHA continues to finance private developers who openly proclaim that none of their homes will be sold to Negroes. The Urban Renewal program has, in many instances, served to accentuate, even to initiate, segregated neighborhoods. (Since a large percentage of the people to be relocated are Negroes, they are more than likely to be relocated in segregated areas.)

A President seriously concerned about this problem could direct the Housing Administration to require all participants in federal housing programs to agree to a policy of "open occupancy." Such a policy could be enforced by (a) making it mandatory for all violators to be excluded from future participation in federally financed housing programs and (b) by including a provision in each contract giving the government the right to declare the entire mortgage debt due and payable upon breach of the agreement.

These are merely illustrations of acts possible of multiplication in many other fields.

EXECUTIVE policy could reshape the practices and programs of other agencies and department whose activities affect the welfare of millions. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare could be directed to coordinate its resources to give special aid in those areas of the country where assistance might change local attitudes. The department could give valuable assistance to local school boards without any additional legislative enactments.

The Department of Agriculture—which doubtless considers civil-rights issues as remote from its purview—could fruitfully reappraise its present operations with a view to taking certain steps that require no new legislative powers. The department could be of tremendous assistance to Negro farmers who are now denied credit simply because of their desire to exercise their citizenship rights. To wipe out this kind of discrimination would be to transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of Negroes on the land. A department zealous to implement democratic ideals might become a source of security and help to struggling farmers rather than a symbol of hostility and discrimination on the federal level.

A Justice Department that is imbued with a will to create justice has vast potential. The employment of powerful court orders, enforced by sizable numbers of federal marshals, would restrain lawless elements now operating with inexcusable license. It should be remembered that in early American history it was the federal marshal who restored law in frontier communities when local authority broke down.

In the opinion of many authorities Executive power, operating through the Attorney General, opens many hitherto untried avenues for Executive action in the field of school desegregation. There are existing laws under which the Attorney General could go into court and become a force in the current school struggles. Atrophy is not alone a medical phenomenon; it has its counterpart in social and political life. Long years of ignoring this area of law and Executive power have led, indeed, to atrophy; nothing is done, nothing is studied, though new situations arise constanstly where existing laws could reasonably be utilized.

SPACE WILL NOT permit a spelling out of all the measures by which every federal body could contribute to the enforcement of civil rights. This is the task of a master plan. Nor is it necessary to detail a legislative program, nor to list still unused powers inherent in the Judiciary. Justices J. Skelley Wright and W. A. Bootle in Louisiana and Georgia respectively have given examples of the ability of a single Federal District Judge to handle the unconstitutional maneuverings of state legislatures.

The purpose of this review is to emphasize that a recognition of the potentials of federal power is a primary necessity if the fight for full racial equality is to be won. With it, however, must go another indispensable factor—the recognition by the government of its moral obligation to solve the problem.

A recent visit to India revealed to me the vast opportunities open to a government determined to end discrimination. When it confronted the problem of centuries-old discrimination against the "untouchables," India began its thinking at a point that we have not yet reached. Probing its moral responsibilities, it concluded that the country must atone for the immense injustices imposed upon the untouchables. It therefore made provision not alone for equality, but for special treatment to enable the victims of discrimination to leap the gap from backwardness to competence. Thus, millions of rupees are set aside each year to provide scholarships, financial grants and special employment opportunities for the untouchables. To the argument that this is a new form of discrimination inflicted upon the majority population, the Indian people respond by saying that this is their way of atoning for the injustices and indignities heaped in the past upon their 70 million untouchable brothers.

Although discrimination has not yet been eliminated in India, the atmosphere there differs sharply from that in our country. In India, it is a crime punishable by imprisonment to practice discrimination against an untouchable. But even without this coercion, so successfully has the government made the issue a matter of moral and ethical responsibility that no government figure or political leader on any level would dare defend discriminatory practices. One could wish that we here in the United States had reached this level of morality.

To COORDINATE the widespread activities on the civil rights front, the President should appoint a Secretary of Integration. The appointee should be of the highest qualifications, free from partisan political obligations, imbued with the conviction that the government of the most powerful nation on earth cannot lack the capacity to accomplish the rapid and complete solution to the problem of racial equality.

These proposals for federal action do not obviate the necessity for the people themselves to act, of course. An Administration of good faith can be strengthened immeasurably by determined popular action. This is the great value of the non-violent direct-action movement that has engulfed the South. On the one hand, it gives large numbers of people a method of securing moral ends through moral means. On the other hand, it gives support and stimulation to all those agencies which have the power to bring about meaningful change. Thousands of courageous students, sitting peacefully at lunch counters, can do more to arouse the Administration to positive action than all of the verbal and written commentaries on governmental laxity put together.

WHEN our government determines to ally itself with those of its citizens who are crusading for their freedom within our borders, and lends the might of its resources creatively and unhesitatingly to the struggle, the blight of discrimination will begin rapidly to fade.

History has thrust upon the present Administration an indescribably important destiny—to complete a process of democratization which our nation has taken far too long to develop, but which is our most powerful weapon for earning world respect and emulation. How we deal with this crucial problem of racial discrimination will determine our moral health as individuals, our political health as a nation, our prestige as a leader of the free world. I can think of few better words for the guidance of the new Administration than those which concluded the 1946 report of the President's Commission on Civil Rights: "The United States is not so strong, the final triumph of the democratic ideal not so inevitable that we can ignore what the world thinks of us or our record." These words are even more apt today than on the day they were written.

[msongs]

1. first set the principles, THEN figure out how to put them into action:

public option for healthcare and/or single payer
equality for all lgbt Americans
verifiable and provable elections
freedom from obsolete oil/gas technology
etc.

no hedging or playing word games - statements of principle and demand action

takes leadership

Msongs