Black America 1970

Both races as human beings [have] the obligation, the responsibility, of helping to correct America's human problems . . . In our mutual sincerity we might be able to show a road to the salvation of America's very soul.

--Malcolm X, shortly before his assassination, 1965

THE struggle between the races in America is indeed the struggle for the soul of a nation. Lately a lull seems to have descended on that struggle. Since Richard Nixon became President, he has deliberately muted the rhetoric of race. Until last week's pronouncement on school desegregation, he had not addressed himself directly to the problem at all--and he still has not spoken out on the broader aspects of civil rights. While the black community is far from silent, its leaders have sounded comparatively subdued in the face of growing white indifference or hostility. Yet this relative calm exists on the surface only; it is largely an illusion. Blacks are asserting a new sense of pride, self-reliance--and impatience. Economically, they have made considerable progress. But this progress is most impressive in comparison with the blacks' past condition, not in comparison with white achievements. The black sense of inequality is, if anything, growing. Says the Ford Foundation's Roger Wilkins: "Racism is in every nook and cranny in this country, and each of us blacks has to deal with it every day of our lives. Any overview of black life in this country that does not include the word pain is hopelessly deficient."

More than a century after the Civil War and 16 years after the Supreme Court's school-desegregation ruling, the American black has not achieved justice or equality. This remains the biggest single problem in America, and its greatest shame. Unless the problem is solved, all of U.S. urban civilization may dissolve in a mixture of chaos and repression. That is why TIME takes the unusual step of devoting most of this issue to a report on the condition of black America today.

Richard Nixon has so far shown himself hostile to any sweeping efforts to help blacks catch up with whites. He has, in effect, advised patience and self-restraint. "It is time," he said in his 1970 State of the Union address, "for those who make massive demands on society to make some minimal demands on themselves." The President senses, Nixon's aides explain, that black demands, black protests, the riots of recent years, have strained white America's capacity to accept racial change. There must be time, he feels, for acceptance of the vast upheavals in law and custom that have taken place. Clearly, there is some reason in this argument--which also happens to be politically productive for Nixon. But it is not an argument on which to base moral leadership. Nixon has a tremendous opportunity for such leadership; as a Republican President, he can do things a Democrat might find difficult. The welfare reform bill, introducing a modified, if modest, guaranteed annual wage, is one example. In its pragmatic way, the Administration has made some other significant moves. Yet such accomplishments are far outweighed by other acts: the go-slow on desegregation, the attempt to dilute the Voting Rights Act, the Haynsworth and Carswell nominations, the general lack of warmth, concern and responsibility for blacks on the part of the White House. When Presidential Adviser Daniel P. Moynihan counseled "benign neglect" in his now famous memo, his stated intention was only to remove hysteria from both sides of the racial struggle. But the phrase seems to describe the Administration's attitude on race in general-- and most blacks even question the accuracy of the word benign.

Nixon's call for a pause, a timeout, seems to have the approval of many, if not most, white Americans, who are weary of high taxes for social improvements, fearful of black competition for jobs and housing and terrified in many cities by the specter of black crime. It is not fair to attribute all this only to white racism. Conscious and unconscious racism is indeed widespread and cancerous in the country. But in many cases white Americans are not so much racist as selfish or indifferent or trapped in circumstance and history as much as the blacks themselves. It is not always easy for whites to understand that black crime hurts mostly other blacks and that it is often the result of desperate poverty and urban chaos, for which the blacks are not to blame. It is not always easy for whites to realize that the violence of black rhetoric, the calls of "get Whitey" and "kill the pigs," spring from a deep wound caused by 31 centuries of blatant injustice and from a feeling that polite, peaceable methods have not worked. Despite violent language, the vast majority of blacks realize that actual violence ultimately hurts the black cause. Most black leaders are now committed to militancy short of violence. Considering their grievances, America's blacks have been more patient and less violent than the white world had any right or reason to expect.

The blacks' new aggressive assertion of their separate identity helps to strengthen white segregationists, who are only too happy to keep them separate. Some whites see this new mood as racism in reverse. But to the extent that it celebrates black culture and nourishes black pride, it is a positive, important, undoubtedly permanent phenomenon. To the extent that black separatism represents a retreat in hate from U.S. society, it may be only a temporary phase; the hope is that, once blacks have gained necessary strength and confidence, they will turn back outward toward white America and deal with it on more nearly equal terms.

Blacks desire the good things in life, which so many other Americans have already gained; these things are now taken for granted by the white middle class and have even become somewhat boring. In this sense, black militants are very different from young white radicals. They do not spurn material progress but want a greater share of it--along with freedom and equality. They are indeed faithful dreamers of the American dream-- but scandalously hampered in turning that dream into reality for themselves.

How America deals with blacks and their aspirations will define for decades and perhaps centuries what kind of country America really is. How America deals with them, and therefore with itself, will show it to be either the country seen by its bitter critics-- selfish and oppressive. Or else the country seen by its defenders-- greatly troubled but still in the grip of its original moral purpose and promise. It may be the black man's role not only to fight for his rightful share of his heritage, but to recall white Americans to their own sense of conscience and destiny.

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