The Civil Rights Movement: There’s No Equality without Enforced Rights- Learn Liberty

On paper, blacks had equal constitutional rights by 1866. The Civil Rights Movement pushed to get those rights enforced. Prof. Fabio Rojas explains.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Fabio Rojas:
The other thing, which I think is very important to realize that's a little bit different than civil rights, than in the way that many libertarians, or classical liberals think about civil rights, is that civil rights in that context, with Martin Luther King and his movement, was about enforcement of rights. Because, legally, people had equal rights as early as 1865 or 1866, when the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments of the Constitution were passed. Just to refresh, those are the Amendments that abolished slavery and gave people, black and white, every person in the United States, equal procedural protections under law.

According to that law, you could not have a court for black people and a court for white people. Everybody was subject to the same court. Everybody was subject to the same police. Everybody was subject to the same everything. In theory, blacks and whites were equal, but in practice, it was the complete opposite. Because, what people would do is they would pass legislation in the states, sometimes in the Federal Government, that would enforce segregation in housing, schools, all kinds of areas of life. It wasn't enough to have a constitutional amendment saying you're equal, you needed various institutions in society to actually say, "Yes, a black person has as much right to be a doctor, to open a business on your street, and Main Street, downtown, without harassment." As with anyone else.

My great example of this is the sad case of lynching. As you may or may not know from American History, there was a horrible wave of lynchings, which are these mobs of people that would pick up blacks, and hang them, and do horrible, horrible things to them. On paper, that was completely illegal, but the southern states, especially the southern states, refused to enforce this. For the Civil Rights Movement, there was definitely an abstraction notion of freedom. Amongst King's Branch, the Movement, there was a side of universal love, but what everybody agreed on was that the state was not enforcing your right to personal safety, your right to practice a profession, and your right to do these other things, which most people take for granted. That was the key issue for the Civil Rights Movement.

LEARN LIBERTY:

[anonwoohoo]

It went from being forced segregation to forced integration. Liberty was never an option.

[EcchiMoogle]

Libertarians should NOT respect the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was one of the most atrocious laws in the history of the US insofar that it removed your fundamental property right to exclude others from your own property for any reason rational or irrational. It is a direct violation against all that Libertarians stand for in revering property rights. The right to voluntarily discriminate against others on your own property should be vehemently upheld by all libertarians.

[Peteristrate]

A libertarian channel telling you that affirmative action is necessary because equal law is not enough. So the problems were not caused by corruption within the system, but because the law itself was "not enough affirmative" for some groups.

[breklaberif]

People are created equal but grow up different, thus making them unequal. They are equal once again only in death. Forcing them to be equal is a totalitarian measure and nothing short of a exercise in how great someone who's disconnected from the real world thinks that they are by making their lives as terrible and as miserable as each other's.

[satanicsupersoldier]

Rights are humanly inherent. Enforcing anything, inevitably leads to conflict. That is the path of the dark Side. Rights must be regulated, within one's soul.

[privatedeletebuttongooglei]

Put black only up there instead of white only because thats the way it is in tulsa in may 13, 2024

[taylorhines]

Inherenetly unconstitutional and un-American

[oucanemailme]

Civil Rights Act of 1866, creation of the statutory citizen of the United States.. "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" - not a blanket every one born in the United States....