August 30, 2013

Black Leadership and Racial Murder

By J.R. Dunn
The recent explosion of black-on-white vicious and hateful killings -- the murder of thirteen-month-old Antonio Santiago, the shooting of nurse David Santucci in Memphis, the murder of Australian student Chris Lane, the beating death of elderly veteran Delbert Belton -- have served to put an end to one of the great myths of the civil rights movement: that black leadership would lead the country out of racism into an epoch of national reconciliation. One of the assumptions behind the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s was that black participants (not to overlook their white supporters) had a moral claim infinitely superior to that of their opponents.  There is certainly a large measure of truth to this. There's no meaningful measure of comparison between Ralph Bunche, James Meredith, Ralph Abernathy, or Martin Luther King and the Bilbos, Faubuses, and Wallaces who comprised the defenders of segregation. (As for those who want to criticize Rev. King for his numerous...(Read Full Article)