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This series examining the history of black people in the United States isn’t one in which the usual writings focusing on slavery, the civil rights movement, and the present state of black America. Rather, it will put a lens on subject matter that is often unknown and rarely talked about, from how the North benefitted from slavery to the creation of the ghetto to alleged government involvement with the transportation of drugs into the black community. While the story of black people in the US is viewed generally as one of struggle, however it is also one of rebellions and uprisings against unjust conditions. In many ways, it is a story of resistance and hope against seemingly indomitable odds.

Don't miss reading the previous part: "The ghetto: The eluded center of the black uprisings"

The uprisings of the ‘60s and the increased movement towards black radicalism in the ‘70s put the entire US social system in disarray. Blacks had shown that they were not going to deal with the horrid conditions that had been hoisted upon them and would fight back, taking whatever means necessary. The power structure was caught completely unaware and thus had to move quickly in order to regain control of black areas. To this end, the solution came in the form of black capitalism from Richard Nixon, who himself was rather interesting as it related to black people.

Nixon seemed to have a split personality when it came to civil rights. At times he was anti-civil rights, such as when he “identified his administration with opposition to racial busing, and shifted the onus of federal government coercion in school integration policy from executive agencies in the presidency to the federal courts” [1] and in 1972, asked for Congress to pass a constitutional amendment against school busing. Yet, there were moments when he seemed pro-civil rights. For example, during his first term in office, he “sent budgets to Congress that increased agency appropriations for civil rights enforcement from $75 million in 1969 to $2.6 billion by 1972” and quietly supported the “effective efforts of George Shultz, first as labor secretary and then as Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director, to coordinate peaceful school desegregation throughout the South.” Thus, Nixon was a rather strange, seemingly conflicted individual on civil rights.

Strangely enough, the philosophical roots of Nixon’s black capitalism can be traced back to his time on the Committee on Government Contracts (CGC), when he was Vice President in the Eisenhower administration. The CGC was established in 1953 by Eisenhower in order to “receive complaints of alleged violations of nondiscrimination provisions in government contracts and forward them to the appropriate contracting agencies” and “[provide] educational training to assist government agencies and nongovernmental organizations in eliminating discrimination against minorities working in projects that received governmental funding.” [3]

On December 14, 1954, the CGC released a report entitled Summary of Meeting Between The President's Committee on Government Contract and Representatives of Industry which included a rather interesting statement: “It is in the country's self-interest. The advancement of the nondiscrimination program helps to create better relations between free nations. Discrimination in employment provides fuel for Communist propaganda and to the extent that we help eliminate discrimination we help eliminate a very serious problem.” [4] Nixon linked discrimination-free employment, specifically with regards to black people, as part of battling Communism and aiding in national security.

Furthermore, Nixon’s black capitalism idea actually complimented his Southern Strategy during the 1968 presidential campaign as “Because black economic development and racial integration are not necessarily related, Nixon could make political overtures such as ‘Black Capitalism’ to blacks without offending southern whites.” [5]

However, Nixon wasn’t the only one grappling with philosophy at the time. The entire black community was struggling on how to go forward. After MLK’s death, there were a number of viewpoints in the black community regarding what black people should do to move forward, some focused on economics, others focused on fighting the battles in the court system, still others argued for an increase in civil rights legislation. This lack of a unified viewpoint and strategy allowed for Nixon to develop this black capitalism idea and hopefully attract black people to it. Two major black figures were interested in and became major proponents of black capitalism: Floyd McKissck and Roy Innis.

McKissick was initially a pro-integration civil rights lawyer and nonviolent advocate, however, he began to take a turn to aggressive Black Power in 1967 when he became the national director of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE). During his tenure, CORE effectively became an all-black organization. In 1969, McKissick penned the book Three-Fifths of A Man, in which he argued that the United States should cede several states to black control. Around this same time, he resigned as head of CORE to create McKissick Enterprises by which to “pursue his interest in black economic development full-time.” [6] He publicly supported Nixon’s ‘Black Capitalism’ initiative and seemingly due to this, he “later received one of the largest aggregations of federal grants associated with Nixon’s economic plan for black America. McKissick and his McKissick Enterprises were awarded upwards of $17 million to start ‘Soul City,’ a new town development project in North Carolina on 3,000 acres of land” [7] and was seemingly similar to the plan outlined it his book, but drastically scaled down. By 1972, McKissick had become a staunch Republican and while Soul City didn’t particularly work out (it seemed that the finances were being used for anything but creating a city), McKissick’s endorsement of black capitalism and embracement of the Republican party became a major asset for Nixon and later President Ford as he actively fundraised for Republicans in the black community and created an organization whose stated goal was to elect more black Republicans to Congress.

Roy Innis was McKissick’s successor in leading CORE and almost immediately went to work making the group even more radical than it already was. This had started in 1966 when, as head of the Harlem chapter, Innis pushed for and obtained a resolution denouncing integration and purging the organization of its white members at a national CORE conference. At the 1968 national conference, Innis proposed a new constitution which “called for ‘the complete takeover by blacks of all economic, political, and social institutions in black communities for the purpose of fostering the economic development of these communities’” [8] and he generally called for greater black ownership of ‘capital instruments.’ It was during this same period that Nixon began expounding upon his ideas of black capitalism.

There is some scant evidence to suggest that this didn’t just happen out of the blue.

Rowland Evans, Jr. and Robert D. Novak both co-authored the 1971 book Nixon in the White House: The Frustration of Power, were they alleged that “Innis supported Nixon during the Presidential campaign of 1968 in hope of being designated "the President's man in the ghetto.’” [9] While he was ignored by Nixon, both he and McKissick’s endorsement of black capitalism aided Nixon by establishing black capitalism as a legitimate initiative and helped to control the black population as he personally viewed black people and the Black Power movement specifically, as a major internal security threat.

Black capitalism would allow for the creation of a black middle class, which would actually help to maintain the current system of control as many people, not just conservatives, assumed “that unrest in the ghettos [was] in large part caused by the absence, among Negroes, of a moderating, stabilizing middle class.” From a purely conservative point of view, “the best guarantor of social peace [was] the ownership of property,” but from a larger, systemic view, “The development of a Negro middle class appeals to anxious concerns about social stability, the threat of increasing demands for serious economic redistribution programs, and the restoration of acceptable go-betweens in a situation of increasing racial polarization.” [10] With the creation of a black middle class, there were hopes that the uprisings and unrest would dissipate.

Refrences:

[1] Hugh Davis Graham, “Richard Nixon and Civil Rights: Explaining an Enigma,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 26:1 (Winter 1996) pg 94

[2] Ibid

[3] Lewis A. Randolph, Robert E. Weems Jr., “The Ideological Origins of Richard M. Nixon’s Black Capitalism Initiative,” The Review of Black Political Economy 29:1 (2001), pg 50

[4] Randolph, Weems Jr., pg 51

[5] Randolph, Weems Jr., pg 52

[6] Randolph, Weems Jr., pg 54

[7] Ibid

[8] Randolph, Weems Jr., pg 55

[9] Randolph, Weems Jr., pg 56

[10] Martin Rein, “Social Stability and Black Capitalism,” Trans-action 6:8 (June 1969), pg 4