Blackjacks Before Throats

As many have said, the Civil Rights movement is too often sanitized, with Martin Luther King turned into a saint instead of a man. Which makes it easy to forget that they were demonized in their day, just as current movements like Black Lives Matter are today.

Here's a reminder of how that played out back in 1963:


In which the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was compared to a blackjack, used to beat unwilling people into submission. "The bill is not a 'moderate' bill and it has not been 'watered down.' It constitutes the greatest grasp for executive power conceived in the 20th century."

The small type at the bottom reads:

The socialists' omnibus bill of 1963 now before the Senate

The American people are being set up for a blow that would destroy their right to determine for themselves how they will live.

What is being piously presented as a human effort to redress past wrongs — the "Civil Rights" bill — is, in fact, a cynical design to make even the least of us, black and white alike, subject to the whim and caprice of government bureaucrats.

Unless American workers, farmers, business and professional men, teachers, homeowners, every citizen awakens now, harsh Federal controls will reach into our homes, jobs, businesses, and schools, into our local State elections, and into our municipal and State governments.

Within the coverage of this bill Federal inspectors would dictate to

Individuals:
As to
1. Seniority in private employment
2. Seniority in civil service
3. Preferential advance of minorities
4. Social Security

Schools and Colleges:
As to
1. Handling of people
2. Employment of faculties
3. Occupancy of dormitories
4. Use of facilities

Occupancy of dormitories, oh my! Little Susie could be forced to live share a room and a bathroom with a black woman. And what's with the reference to Social Security? Wasn't that a federal program in 1963? Not exactly a states' rights issue.

The use of the blackjack as a metaphor is interesting also, since it was way more likely that a Civil Rights demonstrator would get beaten than the other way around. These days a comparable message wouldn't use the blackjack metaphor. (I'm not sure anyone knows what a blackjack is anymore.) Instead, it would be claim activists want to cram something down "our" throats.