Character, color, and MLK revisionism

During oral argument at the Supreme Court in one of the big reverse discrimination cases (Steelworkers v. Weber, maybe), the lawyer opposing racial quotas cited assurances given by Hubert Humphrey during debates over the 1964 Civil Rights Act, of which Humphrey was the main sponsor, that such quotas were prohibited by the Act. Justice Blackmun asked the lawyer whether Humphrey, who was no longer living, would have supported the racial preferences at issue in the case.

The lawyer said he thought Humphrey would not. Blackmun gave him a skeptical look.

Blackmun may have been right to be skeptical. But the correct answer to his question was that it makes no difference what Humphrey would support. What matters were the promises Humphrey had to make to get the Civil Rights Act passed and, for textualists, the statutory language that memorializes those promises.

Martin Luther King’s famous line, delivered 60 years ago today, about blacks being judged by their character not their skin color, was a more eloquent version of Sen. Humphrey’s assurances about the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It seemed like an unequivocal rejection of the idea that blacks should be preferred because of their skin color.

And, of course, it is frequently cited by opponents of such preferences for that proposition. If the greatest civil rights leader of them all excluded racial preferences from his famous “dream,” it isn’t easy for his successors to disagree?

To get around this problem, supporters of race-preferences can offer several responses. One is that in the years following his speech, King came to consider such preferences necessary and proper. Maybe. But it seems fair to hold King to his most famous utterance on civil rights — the one that proved so valuable in solidifying mainstream support for his movement.

Another response might be that King, even in 1963, believed in racial preferences. Does this mean King lied in his famous speech? To get around this difficulty, maybe it can be argued that the 1963 speech must be viewed ”in context.”

But the context was that King wanted a catchy turn of phrase that would rally widespread mainstream support for the civil rights movement in general and the stalled Civil Right Act (the one Humphrey was sponsoring) in particular. Thus, King gave the same sort of assurance Humphrey later gave — that the blacks wanted only to be judged on the basis of merit, not skin color.

However, the “context” argument can be refined to claim that, given the depth of racism in America, blacks could only be judged on the basis of their character if their race were taken into account. Yet King seemed to foreclose this interpretation because he directly contrasted judging blacks on the basis of character with judging them on the basis of skin color.

Remember, though, that King was talking about his “dream” and what he hoped for “one day.” Thus, it’s possible that King, even in 1963, felt that blacks would have to receive preferential treatment, possibly for decades, before his dream of colorblind treatment could be realized.

But if King did think this, he kept the thought well hidden from those of us who heard him speak that day on the Mall. An ordinary listener would have concluded that King was saying what Sen. Humphrey would say soon afterwards, and for the same purpose — that the civil rights movement was demanding colorblind treatment of blacks now, and nothing more.

King delivered his speech 60 years ago. Today’s civil rights movement is not bound by the ordinary meaning of what he said back then. While it is legally bound by the Constitution and the civil rights laws, it has the right to advocate that blacks be judged by the color of their skin, at least to the extent of receiving meaningful boosts when they compete with whites and Asian-Americans for jobs, college admission, and government benefits.

But such advocacy faces the same problem it would have faced in 1963-64. The vast majority of Americans disagree.

King’s line became iconic for a very good reason. It is fundamentally just. It beautifully expressed the undeniable moral force of the civil rights movement.

Sixty years later, that movement seeks to redefine what is fundamentally just. In doing so, it forfeits the moral high ground and, now that George Floyd fever has subsided, popular support.