Rioting in Ferguson — A Disheartening Rejection of the Civil Rights Movement

 

The most disheartening fact about the riots in Ferguson, Missouri — and subsequent demonstrations elsewhere — has been that both rioters and demonstrators reject due process of law. Yet these same rioters and many of their supporters are among the Americans who should be most invested in protecting the law’s protections. They are, after all, some of the chief beneficiaries of the nearly two-century struggle to achieve the very rights they called for wiping away.

The struggle to make protection of rights universal in America – that is, to extend it to African-Americans — began in the Revolutionary years with the banning of slavery in Vermont in 1777, in Pennsylvania (albeit by stages) in 1780 and in Massachusetts in 1783. It continued with exclusion of slavery from the Northwest Territories in 1787, the subsequent ending of slavery within their borders by all states north of the Mason-Dixon line and the Ohio River, the Civil War, the 13th Amendment, and Reconstruction. It languished after Union troops left the South in 1877 and in the decades that followed as the various legislative struggles between pro-civil rights Republicans and pro-segregation Democrats generally ended with no action or with setbacks — as when Woodrow Wilson introduced segregation into the federal government. It returned to life with the Democratic Party’s split over civil rights at its 1948 national convention. In the following decade and a half, a new civil rights movement gained steam among both a new alliance of Republicans and northern Democrats on one hand and increasingly vocal and brilliantly led African-Americans on the other. It ultimately carried the day in a series of victories – legislative and otherwise — stretching from the middle ‘60s to the middle ‘70s.

In this two-century-long struggle’s final outcome, winning the vote for African-Americans throughout the South was important. Desegregation of Southern schools and full access to public accommodation were milestones, too. But nothing was more critical than extending full reach for the rule of law and due process to all citizens in those states where their writ hadn’t run — that is, in the Southern states. No more mob verdicts. No more lynchings. No more selective justice to ensure that state penal systems maintained sufficient head counts to keep their captive industries running smoothly. More than everything else, this victory was about ensuring that due process and the rule of law were universally honored rights. No exceptions.

In recent decades we have come to use the term “rights” loosely. Anything that anyone considers desirable we label a “right.” Like the blowhard Glendower of Shakespeare’s Henry the 4th, Part 1, proponents of ever more rights proclaim they can “call spirits from the vasty deep.” But, again and again, the calling turns out to have little or nothing to do with whether, when called, those spirits – or rights – come into the lives of actual men and women. A happy outcome usually depends on getting the economics right and unleashing, not restricting, market forces.

The exceptions are the real rights – the rights that government is capable and competent to guarantee, the rights that have to do with governance itself and the nature of man (that is, of humanity — men and women). Freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, property. Freedom from unlawful search and seizure. Due process and rule of law, including the protections of grand juries and trial by jury. All these rights preceded the civil rights movement, the Civil War, the Constitution, the Revolution. They were the product of an earlier several centuries struggle in what is now the United Kingdom. But nothing was more critical to the final outcome of our own two-century contest than that they were imported into our governance at the nation’s founding.

So why were the rioters in Ferguson rioting and the protestors elsewhere protesting. For what? Overturning a grand jury’s decision not to prosecute? No one disputed that the grand jury was fairly selected and pulled from all parts of the regional community, including from African-Americans. No one disputed that the men and women on it addressed their task conscientiously. Readers of the court transcript reported that, based on the testimony these jurors received, a guilty verdict at trial would have been impossible. But the rioters’ position — and that of subsequent protestors around the nation — was that the only acceptable outcome in the case would have been that the police officer went to trial and then, presumably, to prison.

In other words, the rioters and their supporters wanted to wipe away the most critical victory of the civil rights movement, the most essential win of the 200-year fight. And with gunshots, lootings,and torchings as well as marches, they issued their demand in the name of the very Americans (including themselves) whose rights (those same rights they wanted to deny) the movement and struggle succeeded after such extended effort in securing.

It was, and is, tremendously disheartening.

 

An earlier version of this commentary appeared here.

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  1. user_428379 Coolidge
    user_428379
    @AlSparks

    I’ve lived long enough to see lots of progress. An educated black in this country can have a comfortable middle class existence. Most of the racism they will encounter is fairly minor and won’t make them afraid for their lives. When I was born, that was not the case.

    As for those that aren’t educated, the welfare system provides them opportunities if they choose to take them. In few instances are their lives as hopeless as they’re led to believe.

    As things have gotten better they’ve gotten more resentful. This may not solve the problem, but the first thing we should do is stop listening to white liberals, because their proposed solutions have become a part of the problem.

    It was, in large part a white press, and a still white Democrat Party that encouraged these riots. Most racial fights in this country have been between white people. Yes black and Hispanic leaders aren’t on the sidelines, but a big part of their strategy is to convince white people that they are a bigger problem than they are.

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  2. rico Inactive
    rico
    @rico

    Thank you for this thought-provoking piece.

    If Liberals cared about civil rights as much as Conservatives and Libertarians do they would be expressing the same concerns and asking the same questions that you raised. Unfortunately, Liberals have either evolved or have been co-opted by their Progressive wing, the leaders of which (in politics and the media) bear responsibility for rejection of civil rights as well as pretty much everything American.

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  3. Paul A. Rahe Member
    Paul A. Rahe
    @PaulARahe

    What the protestors want is what the Ku Klux Klan wanted in the 1920s — revenge on those they resent.

    In those days, liberals were opposed to the Klan. Today they sympathize with the heirs to the Klan.

    In those days, the President of the United States (if he was not Woodrow Wilson) had little sympathy with the Klan. Today we have a President who sympathizes.

    • #3
  4. user_333118 Inactive
    user_333118
    @BarbaraKidder

    Paul A. Rahe:What the protestors want is what the Ku Klux Klan wanted in the 1920s — revenge on those they resent.

    In those days, liberals were opposed to the Klan. Today they sympathize with the heirs to the Klan.

    In those days, the President of the United States (if he was not Woodrow Wilson) had little sympathy with the Klan. Today we have a President who sympathizes.

    Yes, the protestors want revenge, but they also want ‘reparations’ and the leader of this ‘movement’ sits in the oval office!

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  5. Devereaux Inactive
    Devereaux
    @Devereaux

    Elsewhere the most cynical answer, not necessarily untrue, was that the family wanted an indictment so they would have a basis for filing a wrongful death suit – winning the lottery. If there is any truth in such a view, it would imply a terribly self-centered view, willing to allow a serious trampling of not only rights but property of others, as happened in the riots there.

    Perhaps one might ask the question of why today’s black society not only condones lawless behavior but gets upset when anyone intercedes in the carrying out of crime. This is hardly the only example of this behavior. ?How many different episodes have occurred wherein some black male is committing a crime and gets either caught, or killed doing it. The response has actually been around for a long time; we just haven’t been paying attention. I clearly recollect many years ago in Chicago in the ED, a young black male, one of 3 who tried to rob an off-duty police officer and got shot for it, crying to his mother, “Momma, that police officer SHOT me! I was only trying to rob him”.

    Much more recently there was an episode in Houston I believe, where a young black male broke into a home and was shot for his efforts by the homeowner (an elderly man), and the mother again decried the homeowner shooting her son, as he was “only trying to rob him”. Then there was the event in one of the Right Edge states where a witness to an armed robbery at a convenience store called 911 and reported the robber in progress. When the robbers exites the store prior to the arrival of the police, the witness crossed the street and politely asked the two to please remain there as the police were to arrive immenently. Their indignation at such a request was demonstrated by their pulling their guns and threatening the witness, who then promptly drew HIS concealed weapon and killed both. Note no brandishing, not threats, no other intervention other than asking them to stay, a request they could have just ignored. And to round out this short expose, there is the recent case of a police officer being shot point blank by a perp, who was then killed by other police offiecrs in the ensuing (brief) search for him, whose mother claimed that had the officer only stayed in his vehicle, her son wouldn’t have shot him! Interestingly, Darren Wilson was asked the same question in his MSM interview – ?why not just stay in the car and wait for back-up (the answer, of course, can be one word – “Columbine”).

    ?How did we get to this attitude. I believe it speaks directly to the question raised here by this post, about Rule of Law and rights. I believe it has to do with the decades-long drumbeat by the left about racism. I have a friend, black, graduate of Georgetown Law School and retired successful attorney in DC, who has of late been trying to demonstrate to me why the black community is so incensed by all the current events. His position is that black males are shot at an alarming rate by white officers. Yet the examples he gives, with only a few exceptions, are basically ones wherein there was a black and a white person at the opposing sides of the “argument”. One such example given me was of a NYPD officer whose weapon discharged in the pitch-black stairwell of the projects when he attempted to open a door while holding his weapon in the same hand. The bullet struck a young black male who had just entered the stairwell a floor below with his girlfriend at that moment. Clearly there was no racial determination by the officer; he wasn’t even attempting to cover the victim and had an ND, as he was most likely not even aware of the victim’s presence – he simply did seriously bad gun handling and had his ND.

    I have been encouraged by some of the open statements by relatively prominent black personalities that the black population needs to get itself together. That would be nice, but is unlikely as long as the current soul-stupifying relationship continues between our government and the black population. Nothing like the racism of low expectations to keep this problem continuing.

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