1866 Civil Rights Act A descriptive point & somewordsabouttheelephant in ...

[Brian Landsberg]

The association hypos seem somewhat beside the point.  The 1866 Act is aimed at property sales and rentals and commercial contracts.  

The hypos also assume equal hostility by each race to the other.  Plessy also made the mistake of ignoring the advantages that accrued to what it called the "dominant" race.  Blacks were seeking equality, not dominance.

>>> <DavidEBernstein at aol.com> 6/11/2007 10:56 AM >>>

But you're missing the point. If hostile (or even  indifferent) whites had 
sought to join these organizations and take them  over/destroy them, the 
organizations would have just said, "you're not welcome  here" and thrown them out.  
Indeed, if such an organization had simply  suspected that a white (or for 
that matter, a black) who sought to join/attend  was a government spy, etc., they 
could have unceremoniously excluded him, for  whatever reason they wanted, 
including race.  Otherwise, civil rights  groups like the NAACP could have been 
infiltrated; black fraternities and  sororities could have had their assets 
dissipated or seized by new "members" and  so forth. 
 
In the absence of a presumption of freedom of association, how would the  
NAACP have defended itself from a law like the one I posited, that required,  
say, all organizations within the state with more than 500 members to be open to  
all who are willing to pay membership dues?
 
So, I'll grant you this: no one tried to enforce antidiscrimination laws  
against African Americans, so in practice, they never had to assert the right to  
discriminate.  But I don't buy the idea that African Americans, or minority  
groups in general, don't/can't/haven't benefit(ed) from the "liberty" to  
discriminate, because that liberty, while it can and has been used against them,  
also protects them from hostile state action.
 
In a message dated 6/11/2007 1:42:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time,  
blandsberg at pacific.edu writes:

I am not  familiar with racially discriminatory black institutions in the 
South,  certainly not as a common phenomenon.  In my book, Free at Last to Vote,  
I tell about Ruby Tartt, a privileged white woman, who preferred to attend  
black churches in Sumter County, Alabama; she was welcomed to them.  The  NAACP 
did not exclude whites, but welcomed them.


 



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