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Thomas Sowell: Rosa Parks and History
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/thomassowell/2005/10/27/173033.html ^

Posted on 10/27/2005 10:55:50 AM PDT by Shade2

Rosa Parks and history Oct 27, 2005 by Thomas Sowell

The death of Rosa Parks has reminded us of her place in history, as the black woman whose refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, in accordance with the Jim Crow laws of Alabama, became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Most people do not know the rest of the story, however. Why was there racially segregated seating on public transportation in the first place? "Racism" some will say -- and there was certainly plenty of racism in the South, going back for centuries. But racially segregated seating on streetcars and buses in the South did not go back for centuries.

Far from existing from time immemorial, as many have assumed, racially segregated seating in public transportation began in the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Those who see government as the solution to social problems may be surprised to learn that it was government which created this problem. Many, if not most, municipal transit systems were privately owned in the 19th century and the private owners of these systems had no incentive to segregate the races.

These owners may have been racists themselves but they were in business to make a profit -- and you don't make a profit by alienating a lot of your customers. There was not enough market demand for Jim Crow seating on municipal transit to bring it about.

It was politics that segregated the races because the incentives of the political process are different from the incentives of the economic process. Both blacks and whites spent money to ride the buses but, after the disenfranchisement of black voters in the late 19th and early 20th century, only whites counted in the political process.

It was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of the white voters to demand racial segregation. If some did and the others didn't care, that was sufficient politically, because what blacks wanted did not count politically after they lost the vote.

The incentives of the economic system and the incentives of the political system were not only different, they clashed. Private owners of streetcar, bus, and railroad companies in the South lobbied against the Jim Crow laws while these laws were being written, challenged them in the courts after the laws were passed, and then dragged their feet in enforcing those laws after they were upheld by the courts.

These tactics delayed the enforcement of Jim Crow seating laws for years in some places. Then company employees began to be arrested for not enforcing such laws and at least one president of a streetcar company was threatened with jail if he didn't comply.

None of this resistance was based on a desire for civil rights for blacks. It was based on a fear of losing money if racial segregation caused black customers to use public transportation less often than they would have in the absence of this affront.

Just as it was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of whites to demand racial segregation through the political system to bring it about, so it was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of blacks to stop riding the streetcars, buses and trains in order to provide incentives for the owners of these transportation systems to feel the loss of money if some blacks used public transportation less than they would have otherwise.

People who decry the fact that businesses are in business "just to make money" seldom understand the implications of what they are saying. You make money by doing what other people want, not what you want.

Black people's money was just as good as white people's money, even though that was not the case when it came to votes.

Initially, segregation meant that whites could not sit in the black section of a bus any more than blacks could sit in the white section. But whites who were forced to stand when there were still empty seats in the black section objected. That's when the rule was imposed that blacks had to give up their seats to whites.

Legal sophistries by judges "interpreted" the 14th Amendment's requirement of equal treatment out of existence. Judicial activism can go in any direction.

That's when Rosa Parks came in, after more than half a century of political chicanery and judicial fraud.


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: jimcrow; rosaparks; sowell; thomassowell
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To: Mrs Mark

Your comment "things could have gotten better for the blacks without the civil rights movement" is confusing to me. I do not follow.

What would have driven the change? It's also interesting that you say that they "could" have gotten better, not "would" have gotten better.

I don't disagree that communism was not the answer for the American civil rights movement, but neither was doing nothing the answer.

You look at the civil rights movement differently than I do. I see it more as a means to ensure that ALL American citizens had the same rights, the same protections under the law. You and I both know that separate but equal wasn't.

Can you be more specific as to which of the civil rights the movement was seeking for blacks were wrong? I don't have your frame of reference.



61 posted on 10/27/2005 1:35:30 PM PDT by dmz
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To: Revolting cat!
It appears that the woman was a willing pawn of some lawyers and organizations which wanted to achieve through the courts what they couldn't achieve through the ballot box (Sound familiar? Well, it started a lovely trend didn't it?)

Well, no.  It didn't start the trend by any means. You've surely heard of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in Dayton, Tennessee, where Scopes agreed to be the pawn to force the teaching of evolution in school, something the creationist-believing townsfolk would not allow any other way.
62 posted on 10/27/2005 1:54:58 PM PDT by gcruse (http://gcruse.typepad.com/)
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To: RedMonqey
True-good point.

Ironically, it reminds me of Jesse Jackson's involvement with the Terri Shiviao case. Jackson will always be a hustler- but for once he was right to stand up for someone who was having their rights denied them.

Almost everyone is right once or twice. Good thing reasonable citizens didn't fight to undermined civil rights just because a few Communists supported it.

63 posted on 10/27/2005 2:04:55 PM PDT by Diva Betsy Ross (Code pink stinks)
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To: ozzymandus
How clever of you. If ignorance is bliss, you must be a very happy person.

Post some facts then, instead of rumor-mongering and gossiping.

64 posted on 10/27/2005 2:07:15 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (Harmful or Fatal if Swallowed)
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To: wideawake

From the NYTIMZE webpages:



".... Mrs. Parks was very active in the Montgomery N.A.A.C.P. chapter, and she and her husband, Raymond, a barber, had taken part in voter registration drives.

At the urging of an employer, Virginia Durr, Mrs. Parks had attended an interracial leadership conference at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tenn. , in the summer of 1955. There, she later said, she "gained strength to persevere in my work for freedom, not just for blacks but for all oppressed people."

But as she rushed home from her job as a seamstress at a department store on Dec. 1, 1955, the last thing on her mind was becoming "the mother of the civil rights movement," as many would later describe her. She had to send out notices of the N.A.A.C.P.'s coming election of officers. And she had to prepare for the workshop that she was running for teenagers that weekend."


Sounds like she and the NAACP knew the value of taking good advantage from a knowned pracitice.

Not a "setup" but not an "innocent babe in the woods" either.


Just for the record.


65 posted on 10/27/2005 2:13:59 PM PDT by RedMonqey (Life is hard. It's even harder when you're stupid.)
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To: LegendHasIt

I just finished rereading Rosa Parks' autobiography. She was the secretary of the local NAACP. She was the second woman to be arrested for refusing to yield her seat to a white person but she was thought to be the perfect test case to overthrow bus segregation laws (she was a quiet, church-going seamstress).

I personally don't see what difference it makes. The laws were unconstitutional and needed to be overturned. RIP Rosa!


66 posted on 10/27/2005 2:14:56 PM PDT by miss marmelstein
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To: Diva Betsy Ross

"Almost everyone is right once or twice. Good thing reasonable citizens didn't fight to undermined civil rights just because a few Communists supported it."

Unfortunately some did fight on those grounds.

But they lost and in the end that is what matters.

Equality is for ALL people.


67 posted on 10/27/2005 2:17:22 PM PDT by RedMonqey (Life is hard. It's even harder when you're stupid.)
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To: Diva Betsy Ross
That is silly-smokers are not legally prevented from riding buses... people can not smoke on buses. Those two things are NOT the same thing

I love FR, but it gets frustrating sometimes when people don't understand my posts.

Sowell was discussing the role of the marketplace in society, and it is clear that in the area of smoking--where people can smoke, when they can smoke-- the marketplace is not being permitted to operate. Government at all levels is making rules on this, based not on sound science (second hand smoke research is complete hot air) but rather on prejudice, just like the phony science of earlier days that said that blacks were inferior to whites.

White people then, for the most part, "didn't like" blacks. People today, for the most part, don't like people smoking anywhere near them. While some people are truly allergic to smoke the vast majority are simply prejudiced against it.

I hope somebody out there understands--that we have not overcome prejudice, we simply have replaced one set with another.

:-(
68 posted on 10/27/2005 2:17:40 PM PDT by cgbg (Boxer and Feinstein confuse the constitution with Mao's Little Red Book.)
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To: Revolting cat!
There are points in our history when the ballot box has no meaning- yes- they are rare occasions-but they do happen. IMO- The Rosa Parks case and the civil rights movement was one of those times when opinions do not matter.

Our government has one job- and that is to protect the rights of our citizens. They weren't doing their job then and someone needed to point that out in a dramatic way.

69 posted on 10/27/2005 2:22:27 PM PDT by Diva Betsy Ross (Code pink stinks)
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To: cgbg
Well it is difficult to understand a stranger's words when there is no voice to listen to or body lanuage to watch- so it is not a perfect means of communication.

As an ex-smoker, I understand your point about smokers being treated as second class citizens...but on a bus I can understand not allowing people to smoke.

FWIW- I think your second post here illustrates your point better than your first did.

70 posted on 10/27/2005 2:28:21 PM PDT by Diva Betsy Ross (Code pink stinks)
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To: RedMonqey
Right- I guess I don't consider people who would fight against civil rights to be reasonable people- then or now. It was just plain wrong to deny citizens rights- and that needed to be corrected- by any means necessary. And I still support equal rights- not different rights- but equal rights for all people. Of course the left has twisted that every which way.. but that is for a different thread. ;]
71 posted on 10/27/2005 2:34:00 PM PDT by Diva Betsy Ross (Code pink stinks)
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To: cgbg
White people then, for the most part, "didn't like" blacks. People today, for the most part, don't like people smoking anywhere near them. While some people are truly allergic to smoke the vast majority are simply prejudiced against it.

To most people who don't smoke, smoking is a physical irritant. People who smoke in public and in close proximity to others actually impose their habit on others. Referring to not desiring to inhale someone's smoke as being prejudiced is a reach. I've left smoke filled rooms feeling sick plenty of times. I think that this is a good case for personal responsibility. You make the decision to unnecessarily addict yourself to an irritating, harmful substance, then accept the responsibility of not being able to feed you addiction whenever you please. Smoking is a behavior, and being prejudiced against a behavior is quite the norm and quite different from being prejudiced against a race. And from an economic standpoint, with less people smoking now than in the past, allowing smoking on buses may drive most of the customers away.

72 posted on 10/27/2005 2:41:39 PM PDT by Shade2
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To: Dan Evans

"And it continues to fight it by devising new schemes restoring racial preferences in public universities."

Yup! Liberals LOVE to pretend not to be racists but their very actions scream that they ARE!


73 posted on 10/27/2005 6:51:23 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God).)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Try reading the other posts on this thread and admit the whole thing was a set-up, instead of calling me names and making yourself look stupid.


74 posted on 10/27/2005 6:53:00 PM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: Rocky
I agree with you.

I like Sowell. He shed a different view on this that I had not considered. I liked his example of privately owned transportation companies ... that brought it home for me.
75 posted on 10/27/2005 6:53:08 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God).)
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To: Shade2

bttt


76 posted on 10/27/2005 11:14:26 PM PDT by Wallaby
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mark


77 posted on 10/31/2005 7:39:27 AM PST by Jaded (Hell sometimes has fluorescent lighting and a trumpet on a street corner in DC.)
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To: Shade2

Yes, an interesting article.


78 posted on 10/31/2005 7:46:52 AM PST by Jane Austen
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To: Shade2
It was politics that segregated the races because the incentives of the political process are different from the incentives of the economic process.

makes you see why that voting block in new orleans was stranded.

79 posted on 10/31/2005 4:33:21 PM PST by alrea
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