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In the same article, he later states: “The liberal is so preoccupied with stopping confrontation that he usually finds himself defending and calling for law and order, the law and order of the oppressor. Confrontation would disrupt the smooth functioning of the society and so the politics of the liberal leads him into a position where he finds himself politically aligned with the oppressor rather than with the oppressed. “The reason the liberal seeks to stop confrontation... is that his role, regardless of what he says, is really to maintain the status quo, rather than to change it. He enjoys economic stability from the status quo and if he fights for change he is risking his economic stability...” (Stokely Speaks, 170) State Co-optation of the Civil Rights Movement “Nonviolent direct action did not threaten the interests of the corporate class in the same way it threatened those of the Kennedy administration. To be sure, the spectre of a demonstration in front of one's factory or a boycott of one's store might be enough to prompt a given business to yield to protester's demands. But in the North, direct action was not enough to force large concessions or to prompt corporate powerholders on a national level to become either official or unofficial sponsors of change. Riots, however, were another matter. If the cities burned, as McGeorge Bundy of the Ford Foundation noted in an address to the National Urban League convention in 1966, 'the white man's companies will have to take the losses.' Urban violence and the black power ideologies which seemed to fuel it hit American business leaders in a spot where nonviolent direct action had not: their collective economic interests. Consequently, an unprecedented collective response emerged from the top of the economic structure during the late 1960s. The largest corporations and charitable foundations in the US began to 'invest' in racial reform and civil rights.” (Black Radicals and the Civil Rights Mainstream, p. 179) “Did the black rioting in Birmingham—trivial by the standard of Watts and Detroit [the following years], but serious in the context of the early 1960s—weaken the effectiveness of SCLC's campaign Given the administrations deep fear of domestic violence and disorder, it may well have actually helped. The Birmingham riots raised the spectre of black retaliation, of a violent black revolt... This prospect frightened and appalled the Kennedy's. Robert, in particular, feared that nonviolent protest might give way to the violent tactics of irresponsible extremists. As he told a group of Alabama newspaper editors on May 15, 'Remember, it was King who went around the pool halls and door to door collecting knives, telling people to go home and to stay off the streets and to be nonviolent... If King loses, worse leaders are going to take his place. “That was precisely the argument which King made so forcefully in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” If whites remained obdurate to the reasonable demands of nonviolent leaders, he warned, 'millions of Negroes will... seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideology...'” (To Redeem the Soul of America, p. 136) King shares a laugh with President John F. Kennedy, 1963. The quotes above show the symbiotic relationship between reformists and the state: the reformists need the state to enact and enforce reforms in order to remain credible, the state needs the reformists to counter the radicals, and in this way maintain its credibility as a democratic institution. As noted, the US government actively supported and promoted the nonviolent civil rights movement. And it did so because it feared a more dangerous alternative: militant Black resistance and escalating social conflict, not only in the segregated South but across the country. This strategy is known as co-optation, and is accomplished through official state support provided to reformist movements or leaders. This includes high profile meetings with movement leaders, public statements promoting them, extensive media coverage, providing King and other civil rights leaders meet with President Lyndon Johnson, 1964. funding and other resources, and limiting repression against them. Ultimately, co- 68
optation involves some level of collaboration. While the state promoted the Black civil right's movement, it demonized and criminalized the militant Black resistance, repressing it with deadly force when necessary (i.e., the FBI's Cointel-Pro campaign against the Black Panthers, which resulted in scores being killed and hundreds imprisoned, as did military repression of urban rebellions during the 1960s). This dual strategy was the same as that used by the British in India. A more recent version of this was outlined by Frank Kitson in the early 1970s. Kitson was a British Army officer who had extensive experience in counterinsurgency operations in Kenya, Aden, Malaya, and Northern Ireland. He offered advice on how governments should counter mass movements that have not yet developed into armed insurrections: "In practical terms the most promising line of approach lies in separating the mass of those engaged in the campaign from the leadership by the promise of concessions... It is most important to do 3 things quickly. "The first is to implement the promised concessions so as to avoid allegations of bad faith which may enable the subversive leadership to regain control over sections of the people. "The second is to discover and neutralize the genuine subversive element. "The third is to associate as many prominent members of the population, especially those who have engaged in non-violent action, with the government. This last technique is known in America as co-optation and is described... as drowning the revolution in baby's milk." (Low-Intensity Conflict, p. 87-88). King & Senator Ed Kennedy share a moment. We can see from the history of the Civil Rights Movement that the state, once it realized the extent of the crisis, enacted various reforms in accord with those demanded by the movement. Once a militant movement had begun to manifest itself, the US government then sought to neutralize this threat while redoubling its efforts to promote the reformists, and at the same time associating prominent members of it with the state. In January 1957, for example, following the establishment of the SCLC, King was on the cover of Time maga<strong>zine</strong>. “Further confirmation of King's status as a 'national' leader came in June 1958, when he met President Eisenhower as part of a black delegation.” (To Redeem the Soul of America, p. 42) King frequently met and conferred with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, as well as other White House officials, including Robert Kennedy, the US attorney general from 1960-64. The Kennedy's in particular provided considerable support to King and the Civil Rights Movement, and especially after the 1963 Birmingham riots. They also used their influence to direct the movement into electoral politics and litigation (as the British had done with Gandhi). An example of the role of the Kennedy administration in directly co-opting the Civil Rights Movement (along with other measures), was the Voter Education Project: “The mechanism through which President Kennedy, his brother, and their staffs sought to encourage the civil rights movement to shift from demonstrations to voter registration was the Voter Education Project (VEP), which was announced in early 1962. Superficially, the VEP was a purely private operation, administered by the Southern Regional Council in Atlanta and funded by grants from several philanthropic foundations, principally the Taconic Foundation, the Field Foundation, and the Stern Family Fund... These fund were distributed to other organizations, including CORE and SNCC, to pay the expenses of the registration drives in the Deep South... Harris Wofford, President Kennedy's civil rights advisor, maintains that the idea emerged at a June 1961 meeting of the Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights, an informal group of administration officials formed to coordinate and monitor racial progress... 'It was agreed,' he wrote, 'that if federal agencies took the initiative and used their full power to protect and promote equal rights, the necessity for popular pressure could be removed or at least reduced.'” (Black Radicals and the Civil Rights Mainstream, p. 155) In 1965, King received the Nobel Peace Prize, which significantly raised his status as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, even though at this point it was virtually non-existent. The idea that King collaborated with the US government to blunt the emerging Black militancy was a publicly stated fact at the time. During the Selma campaign in 1965, a New York Times editorial, “praised King as the symbol of 'mature responsible leadership which always seeks peaceful solutions through legal and political means,' adding a warning that 'young Negro hotheads' would be encouraged if he did not succeed.'” (To Redeem the Soul of America, p. 247) 69
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A Critical Analysis of Gandhi and K
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School Desegregation, 1957 41 Stude
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nonviolence as a form of struggle.
Page 7 and 8:
Gandhi instead focused on those of
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Indian mine workers were violently
Page 11 and 12:
to take: constitutionalism or milit
Page 13 and 14:
these outbreaks, touring riot-torn
Page 15 and 16:
egan in February 1928, primarily ag
Page 17 and 18: some 120,000 people were arrested.
Page 19 and 20: As the movement was set to begin, h
Page 21 and 22: In response to a recent effort by U
Page 23 and 24: “It is true that the controlled,
Page 25 and 26: Dominion status through constitutio
Page 27 and 28: It is no wonder that many critics o
Page 29 and 30: communist, who became renown for hi
Page 31 and 32: through which human misery, and esp
Page 33 and 34: “I have always been loathe to hid
Page 35 and 36: disobedience. It was also a conveni
Page 37 and 38: ended the civil disobedience moveme
Page 39 and 40: II. Martin Luther King and Civil Ri
Page 41 and 42: Southern Christian Leadership Confe
Page 43 and 44: campaign, and in December 1961 the
Page 45 and 46: SCLC's Birmingham Campaign, 1963 Bi
Page 47 and 48: inflexible bastion of segregation
Page 49 and 50: Beginning in June 1963, the movemen
Page 51 and 52: it was announced that a March for J
Page 53 and 54: do very much, unless we keep the su
Page 55 and 56: Chicago Freedom Movement, 1966 Due
Page 57 and 58: the Black population did not embrac
Page 59 and 60: instigated numerous lethal assaults
Page 61 and 62: Fellowship on Reconciliation One of
Page 63 and 64: Rebellion in the Ranks: Pacifists w
Page 65 and 66: “The principal of self-defense, e
Page 67: major catalyst for government const
Page 71 and 72: Conclusion Pacifism must be challen
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