STRANGEST BEDFELLOWS

My boyfriend and I have this nerd thing we do where we visit Presidential libraries whenever we travel to cities where they are available. Last year, on this very weekend, we went to the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. In modern life, Americans are so obsessed with the buzzword “Watergate” that most do not know any or all of Nixon’s many accomplishments, including his domestic agenda, in many ways a virtual left wing dream by todays standards. Nixon was, after all, from California. He created the Environmental Protection Agency. He signed Title IV into law. He ended the draft. His 1974 health care proposal was exponentially more comprehensive than any that have been proposed since. Had it passed, Nixon would have forced employers to offer healthcare to employees, and provided subsidies for companies who could not afford to do so. He proposed the Family Assistance Program, which would have guaranteed welfare to any American living below a certain income level. He imposed a tax on the wealthy. He opened relations with China. 

He gave us federal race-based job quotas. That’s right. Nixon is largely responsible for affirmative action.

This library is so full of important historical events, it takes several hours to move through it effectively. Despite my long time penchant for foreign policy, (and the large amount of square footage devoted to the Nixon/Kissinger era), the piece of presidential memorabilia which both engaged me at the time and stuck with me this entire year, was not, as I had anticipated, related to China. Nor Vietnam. Nor the space program. Nor Watergate. It was, in fact, a wall display containing letters written to Nixon by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during Nixon’s tenure as Eisenhower’s vice-president. 

What struck me most about the type-written, hand signed letters, was Dr. King’s easy eloquence. His obvious understanding that in order to affect change, one has to be both of the system and above the system. King is articulate. Precise. Insistent. Respectful. His prose, every bit as formal and official as any government leader. But there is just something about his STYLE. In these letters, he does what all charismatic leaders do. King makes Nixon part of HIS agenda.  He offers Nixon a chance to be part of something bigger than merely the vice-presidency of the most powerful country in the world. He offers Nixon a chance to be part of the human experience. A chance to be a man of lasting consequence on the humanitarian stage. Not merely another out of touch white guy sending young men off to war, answering to banks and dictating monetary policies. 

Much to the dismay of all the partisan haters out there, Nixon’s presidential record on civil rights speaks for itself. His effective use of “The Philadelphia Plan” strong armed unions into allowing African-Americans access to the higher paying, skilled trades from which they had always been excluded. It was Nixon, not Kennedy nor Johnson, who signed the Equal Employment Opportunity Act into law in 1972 giving the requisite teeth to the EEOC by allowing race (and other discriminatory practices) to be the basis for federal employment law suits. Nixon shied away from using the term “quotas.” He did, however, require federal contractors to demonstrate that they were utilizing affirmative action, effectively making it the law. 

Much ink has been spilled over both the constitutionality and fairness of affirmative action. I am not attempting to weigh in on that issue. What I find more interesting, is that Dr. King was not only a tireless advocate for the continued improvement of opportunities for African-Americans in all areas of life, but that he also made such an effective use of the system. Reading these letters demonstrated to me was that King was a man who not only asked questions, but also had answers. He believed in something bigger than the process. Something bigger than himself. As a Christian minister, he had reverence for the same basic Quaker values that had guided Nixon in his youth. He appealed to Nixon on every relevant level. As an elected official. A husband. A man. And a moral leader. To people who only know Nixon as a cartoonish paranoid, desperate and scared of his own shadow, this kind of appeal may seem laughable. But such is the desire of the media. There is no question that Nixon’s actions surrounding Watergate were both illegal and immoral. Self-serving. And perhaps that cowardly legacy is deserved. But a closer look at Nixon’s presidency reveals a series of decisions in the arena of civil rights which are decidedly progressive and morally courageous for their time. Whether or not affirmative action has run its course at this point, it seems absurd to deny the fact that at during King’s life, SOMETHING had to be done. Was it perfect? No. Is it fair? On it’s face? Probably not. But it was an attempt to further the necessary integration of African-Americans into all relevant strata of society. And let’s face it. No policy could be more misguided than one allowing enslavement of another person. Any well intended movement in the direction away from that may not hold all the answers. But it also should not be vilified. 

As with all instances of revolution, the second and third waves of the civil rights movements are no more impressive, on the whole, than the American presidents from Van Buren through Buchanan. The lore of Washington, Jefferson and even Andrew Jackson looms large in American history until Lincoln came along some twenty years later. Then Teddy Roosevelt got a little traction forty years after that. Then we get to FDR. JFK. Reagan. A handful of transcendent leaders spaced out over two hundred years. Civil rights is no different. Fifty years into its conception, King and Malcom X, the architects of change, still reign supreme in the public mind, eclipsing guys like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who come off as disingenuous carpet baggers by comparison. This is to be expected. One merely needs to read King’s writing or listen to to a speech to understand why he will forever be the voice of this movement. Al Sharpton is not Dr. King, nor does he need to be. And by the same token, Bill Clinton is not Richard Nixon. Thanks to the media, Bubba's prurient misuse of the Oval Office, equally contemptuous of the constituency and rife with entitlement and cover up, made him seem like the cool kid you never got to sit with at lunch as opposed to Nixon’s now permanent persona as the kid most likely to shoot up the school if you look at him the wrong way. But lets be clear. In the arena of civil rights, there can be no contest. Nixon is the clear progressive.  It was King’s dream. But he needed to persuade guys like Nixon to stop turning it into a nightmare. 

Today serves as a day of reflection about the sacrifices made to ensure equality in our country. When we celebrate Independence Day, we look at the framers of our Constitution and revere them as genius, typically shaking our heads at the current state of Washington by comparison. When we celebrate President’s Day, we declare Lincoln a master of justice, and lament the fact that we have no leaders in todays world who share his god-like qualities. This day is no different. Dr. King was a man of his times, for all times. His vision profound and transformational. The problem with our collective mentality, is that we spend so much time looking back we can’t seem to move forward. The reason that the second and third waves of political movements are basically ineffective, is that the movement is no longer a movement. The tactics that worked against the British didn’t work against the Confederacy. The tactics that worked against the Confederacy didn’t work against men like Nixon. Revolutionaries become revolutionaries because they did things DIFFERENTLY.  Americans love people who fight injustice, whether it is Batman or Nelson Mandela. I don’t think any one of these guys, from Jefferson to Lincoln to King did the things he did so that we could, as a nation, spend our time arguing over whether Jon Stewart or Bill O’Reilly is more representative of the common man. (Spoiler Alert: Neither represents any man, common or otherwise, but they both represent despicable billion dollar conglomerates. Unless you are on board with the Citizens United decision, you probably need to let go of your delusion that Jon Stewart is a liberal. You’re welcome.)

There is a saying that Buddhists like to co-opt: “Leap and the net will appear.” The same can be said of the conditions which create visionaries like Dr. King. Great people rise to greatness when necessary. They distinguish themselves from others through their extraordinary perspectives. Martin Luther King is the voice of the American civil rights movement, and he will always be that voice. His ability to work within the system in order to convince white leaders to listen to his cause, while simultaneously maintaining the perception of being an outlier is unmatched in American history. The idea that Al Sharpton, or anyone can replace King, is ludicrous. No one can replace him. Which tells you one thing and one thing only.

There needs to be a new movement. 

BB