Shelby Steele: The Legacy of Little Rock
[Mr. Steele, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, is the author of "White Guilt" (HarperCollins, 2006).]
... On this 50th anniversary of Eisenhower's troop deployment, the significance of the Little Rock crisis--its place in history--is much clearer. I believe it was the beginning of a profoundly different America.
For one thing, it foreshadowed the end of white supremacy as a legitimate authority. The Little Rock crisis was a conflict between two ideas of authority that had always been in tension in American life. The authority behind the Little Rock Nine came from that constellation of principles that define the American democracy--the idea of individual rights, equality under the law and so on. But in America another authority had always been in play--the atavistic authority of white supremacy, the idea that no less a power than God had chosen the white race to be ascendant over all other races. This was the authority behind the white mob in Little Rock. In taunting those nine black students, this mob was protecting a "divine right" against the ridiculous democratic notion that all men were created equal.
But the mob lost in Little Rock. Eisenhower enforced democratic authority over white supremacy. He made the point that these two authorities could no longer pretend to coexist in the public schools of even a Southern city. In this way the Little Rock crisis joined black Americans to a world-wide movement. The Mau Maus viciously fought this same nemesis in Kenya, Gandhi peacefully fought it in India, and the very first terrorist bombers fought it in Algeria. But in Little Rock the American government, overcoming two centuries of equivocation, broke off from white supremacy and took up the cause of black revolutionaries--and so administered white entitlement a decisive defeat.
But the deeper historical importance of the Little Rock crisis follows from the simple fact that it was televised. It was, in fact, the first time that this still fledgling medium was able to make America into a community by rendering up a riveting real-life drama for the country to watch. Compelling personalities emerged, like the despicable and erratic Gov. Faubus, who kept flaunting federal authority like a little potentate. There was Eisenhower himself, whose grandfatherly patience with Faubus seemed to belie a sympathy with this racist's need to hold on to a fading authority. And there was the daily gauntlet that the black students were made to walk--innocence face to face with evil. And, finally, there was great suspense. How would it all end? Would there by a military clash, another little civil war between North and South?
So Americans watched by the millions and, in this watching, saw something that would change the country fundamentally. Every day for weeks they saw white people so consumed with racial hatred that they looked bestial and subhuman. When white racism was a confident power, it could look like propriety itself, like good manners. But here, in its insecurity, it was grotesque and shocking. Worse, it was there for the entire world to see, and so it broke through the national denial. ...
Read entire article at WSJ
... On this 50th anniversary of Eisenhower's troop deployment, the significance of the Little Rock crisis--its place in history--is much clearer. I believe it was the beginning of a profoundly different America.
For one thing, it foreshadowed the end of white supremacy as a legitimate authority. The Little Rock crisis was a conflict between two ideas of authority that had always been in tension in American life. The authority behind the Little Rock Nine came from that constellation of principles that define the American democracy--the idea of individual rights, equality under the law and so on. But in America another authority had always been in play--the atavistic authority of white supremacy, the idea that no less a power than God had chosen the white race to be ascendant over all other races. This was the authority behind the white mob in Little Rock. In taunting those nine black students, this mob was protecting a "divine right" against the ridiculous democratic notion that all men were created equal.
But the mob lost in Little Rock. Eisenhower enforced democratic authority over white supremacy. He made the point that these two authorities could no longer pretend to coexist in the public schools of even a Southern city. In this way the Little Rock crisis joined black Americans to a world-wide movement. The Mau Maus viciously fought this same nemesis in Kenya, Gandhi peacefully fought it in India, and the very first terrorist bombers fought it in Algeria. But in Little Rock the American government, overcoming two centuries of equivocation, broke off from white supremacy and took up the cause of black revolutionaries--and so administered white entitlement a decisive defeat.
But the deeper historical importance of the Little Rock crisis follows from the simple fact that it was televised. It was, in fact, the first time that this still fledgling medium was able to make America into a community by rendering up a riveting real-life drama for the country to watch. Compelling personalities emerged, like the despicable and erratic Gov. Faubus, who kept flaunting federal authority like a little potentate. There was Eisenhower himself, whose grandfatherly patience with Faubus seemed to belie a sympathy with this racist's need to hold on to a fading authority. And there was the daily gauntlet that the black students were made to walk--innocence face to face with evil. And, finally, there was great suspense. How would it all end? Would there by a military clash, another little civil war between North and South?
So Americans watched by the millions and, in this watching, saw something that would change the country fundamentally. Every day for weeks they saw white people so consumed with racial hatred that they looked bestial and subhuman. When white racism was a confident power, it could look like propriety itself, like good manners. But here, in its insecurity, it was grotesque and shocking. Worse, it was there for the entire world to see, and so it broke through the national denial. ...