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Civil rights and ‘civil riots’: anti-colonialism, anti-communism, and the US radical right during the 1960s

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Abstract

During the early 1960s, some conservatives in the USA saw the civil rights movement in a global context. Those among what scholars have termed the ‘radical right’ understood the civil rights movement to be the US arm of global anti-colonialism. Both movements, they believed, were Communist tools to destroy Western civilization through violence. US radical rightists believed themselves to be the vanguard of a global anti-Communist effort to save civilization from anti-colonial violence, even as representatives of their own federal government began to support the civil rights movement in the US and anti-colonial movements abroad. Radical rightists focused especially on decolonization movements in Algeria, Angola, and Congo, arguing that in both Africa and the USA, Communists were reframing class-consciousness as race consciousness and promoting disrespect for ‘law and order.’

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Notes

  1. Charles W. Winegarner, ‘The Christian and the Black Revolution: Is It Communist Inspired?’ (Los Angeles: Christian Youth Against Communism, 1963), Contemporary Issues Pamphlet Collection, MS 81-07-A, Box 9, Folder: ‘Christian Youth Against Communism,’ Wichita State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, Wichita, Kansas.

  2. See Daniel Bell (ed.), The Radical Right (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1955, 1963, 2008). In A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), Jonathan Schoenwald used the terms ‘radical right’ and ‘far right’ interchangeably to describe those who conflated post-New Deal liberalism with Communism, and to distinguish them from more mainstream conservatives. In White Rage (London: Routledge, 2007), Martin Durham used ‘radical right’ to distinguish such groups from the ‘extreme right,’ whose members tended to describe a global conspiracy in terms of scientific racism and white supremacy. I am following Schoenwald’s practice of using ‘radical right’ and ‘far right’ interchangeably, as well as Durham’s practice of distinguishing these terms from ‘extreme right.’.

  3. To quote historian Kevin Gaines, though Americans have long been ‘accustomed to thinking of the civil rights movement within a domestic US-based framework,’ the movement’s ‘global dimensions’ were ‘abundantly clear to many contemporaries.’ Kevin Gaines, ‘The Civil Rights Movement in World Perspective,’ OAH Magazine of History, 21: 1 (January 2007): 57.

  4. Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, ‘The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past,’ The Journal of American History 91, no. 4 (March 2005): 1237.

  5. The earliest works in this line of scholarship characterized conservatism as an ‘intellectual movement.’ The foundational text was George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (Wilmington: ISI Books, 1976). John P. Diggins, Up From Communism: Conservative Odysseys in American Intellectual History (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1975) emphasized the importance of repentant former Communists in building the conservative movement. Patrick Allitt, Catholic Intellectuals and Conservative Politics in America, 1950–1985 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993) showcased the importance of Catholic intellectuals to the conservative movement in light of conservatism’s political success during the 1980s. Alan Brinkley, ‘The Problem of American Conservatism,’ The American Historical Review 99, no. 2 (April 1994): 409–429, launched a flood of new scholarship that explicitly sought to challenge the idea that ‘the progressive-liberal state’ and the ‘modern, cosmopolitan sensibility’ had in fact triumphed in American politics. Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) characterized grassroots conservatism a ‘strange mixture of traditionalism and modernity’ especially well adapted to suburban US life and culture, while Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011) described the politics McGirr highlighted as part of the experience of a migration of evangelical Christians from the ‘western South’ to suburban enclaves. Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995) described how the segregationist Governor of Alabama harnessed national white resentment of federal power and social disorder during the second half of the 1960s. Joseph Crespino, In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007) demonstrated that Southern segregationists sought to preserve aspects of racial segregation by dropping an explicit defense of the practice and emphasizing other conservative concerns of the 1960s and 1970s. Daniel K. Williams, God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) argued that right-wing Christian political power was built not only on ‘moral legislation,’ but also on opposition to the economic and foreign policy of the liberal consensus.

  6. While Washington insiders and political pundits have emphasized a distinct lack of coherent political philosophy in Donald Trump himself, scholars and investigative journalists have increasingly focused on transnational right-wing influences on thinkers in his circle, especially Steve Bannon, the Trump campaign’s chief strategist during his presidential transition and the first few months of his term. Particularly significant is an esoteric movement known as “traditionalism,” influenced especially by the Italian anti-modernist and anti-egalitarian philosopher, Julius Evola. See especially Matthew Rose, A World After Liberalism: Philosophers of the Radical Right (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021) and Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, War for Eternity: The Return of Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2020).

  7. Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), xii.

  8. Jonathan M. Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 62.

  9. Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing, 4, 7.

  10. Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 10.

  11. D. J. Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2014), 11.

  12. Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the.

    Revolution of American Conservatism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021).

  13. John S. Huntington, Far-Right Vanguard: The Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism.

    (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021).

  14. Richard King, Race, Culture, and the Intellectuals, 1940–1970 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 6.

  15. King, Race, Culture, and the Intellectuals, 22.

  16. George Lewis, The White South and the Red Menace: Segregationists, Anticommunism, and Massive Resistance, 1945–1965 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004), 8.

  17. Mary L. Dudziak, ‘The Limits of Good Faith: Desegregation in Topeka, Kansas,’ Law and History Review 5, no. 2 (Autumn 1987): 376.

  18. James Eastland, ‘School Integration Cases in the US Supreme Court,’ Congressional Record, May 26, 1955, 7119, 7122. Eastland’s words illustrate the move from concerns about infiltration by Communist agents to infiltration by Communist ideas. As the historian K. A. Cuordileone frankly notes, ‘to insist, as did [Eastland], that Communists were behind the [Brown] decision…was to move into the realm of the delusional and absurd.’ Yet Cuordileone also points out that ‘Communist Party members had in fact championed the causes of African Americans in the 1930s and 1940s.’ For a segregationist like Eastland, this was really all that mattered. K. A. Cuordileone, Manhood and American Political Culture in the Cold War (New York: Routledge, 2005), xix.

  19. Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919–1950 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008), 6.

  20. Lewis, The White South and the Red Menace, 39.

  21. Kenneth Goff, Confessions of Stalin’s Agent (Englewood, Colorado: Kenneth Goff, 1948), 36.

  22. Goff, Confessions of Stalin’s Agent, 39.

  23. Martin Camacho, ‘Portugal = Angola,’ Fourth Annual Christian Crusade Convention, Tulsa, Oklahoma, August 5, 1962, John Birch Society Sound Recordings Collection, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

  24. Bernardo Teixeira, The Fabric of Terror: Three Days in Angola (New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1965), xi–xii.

  25. Camacho, ‘Portugal = Angola.’.

  26. Robert Welch, ‘Bulletin for January 1960,’ The White Book of the John Birch Society for 1960 (Belmont: The John Birch Society, Incorporated, 1961), 21.

  27. J. C. Phillips to John Tower, December 21, 1966, Clarence E. Manion Papers, Box 77, Folder 3, Chicago History Museum, Chicago, Illinois; Annette Priemer, ‘Second Anniversary, Progress Report,’ Committee of Christian Laymen, Inc., October 1963, John G. Schmitz Papers, Box 33, Folder 2, Wichita State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, Wichita, Kansas.

  28. Robert Welch, ‘Bulletin for April, 1967’ (Belmont: The John Birch Society, Incorporated, 1967), 5, Contemporary Issues Pamphlet Collection, MS 81-07-A, Box 19, Folder: ‘John Birch Society,’ Wichita State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, Wichita, Kansas.

  29. Ian Smith, ‘Rhodesia’s Leader Sees His Struggle, Ours in Viet Nam as “All the Same”,’ Daily Advance, Thursday, April 21, 1966 (reprint from American Friends of Rhodesia, Nashua, New Hampshire), Contemporary Issues Pamphlet Collection, MS 81-07-A, Box 2, Folder: ‘American Friends of Rhodesia,’ Wichita State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, Wichita, Kansas.

  30. Smith, ‘Rhodesia’s Leader Sees His Struggle, Ours in Viet Nam as “All the Same”.’

  31. Thomas J. Anderson, ‘Here We Go Again,’ Key Records, 1964, The John Birch Society Sound Recordings Collection, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

  32. Thomas J. Anderson, ‘Rhodesia,’ The John Birch Society Report, Transcript 6, 10 April 1966, The John Birch Society Sound Recordings Collection, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

  33. Edwin A. Walker, Speech to the 4th Annual Christian Crusade Convention, Tulsa, Oklahoma, August 4, 1962, John Birch Society Sound Recordings Collection, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

  34. Jonathan M. Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 106.

  35. ‘Walker Demands a “Vocal Protest”,’ New York Times, September 30, 1962.

  36. ‘Walker is Facing 4 Federal Counts,’ New York Times, October 2, 1962.

  37. Leslie C. Smith, ‘Editor’s Note,’ in Earl Lively, Jr., The Invasion of Mississippi (Belmont: American Opinion, 1963), i.

  38. Lively, The Invasion of Mississippi, 30.

  39. Lively, The Invasion of Mississippi, 18, 19.

  40. Alanna O’Malley, ‘The Anvil of Internationalism: United Nations and Anglo-American Relations During the Debate Over Katanga, 1960–1963,’ in Internationalism, Imperialism and the Formation of the Contemporary World, ed. Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo and José Pedro Monteiro (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan/Springer International Publishing, 2018), 288. O’Malley also points out that US support for Congolese sovereignty over Katanga was a response to ‘the Cold War dimensions of the crisis, rather than the colonial predicaments,’ and therefore it was perceived by many of the Congolese themselves ‘as imperialist and domineering.’.

  41. Robert Welch, ‘Bulletin for January 1962,’ The White Book of the John Birch Society for 1962 (Belmont: The John Birch Society, Incorporated, 1963), 14.

  42. Welch, ‘Bulletin for January 1962,’ 4.

  43. Robert Welch, ‘Bulletin for October 1962,’ The White Book of the John Birch Society for 1962 (Belmont: The John Birch Society, Incorporated, 1963), 20.

  44. Robert Welch, ‘Bulletin for September, 1963,’ The White Book of the John Birch Society for 1963 (Belmont: The John Birch Society, Incorporated, 1961), 70–71.

  45. Clarence E. Manion, ‘Race, Color and Creed: Grist for the Marxist Mill,’ The Manion Forum, Weekly Broadcast No. 571, September 12, 1965, 2, 3, Clarence E. Manion Papers, Box 83, Folder 7, Chicago History Museum, Chicago, Illinois.

  46. Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, Violence in the City: An End or a Beginning? (Los Angeles: Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, 1965), 27.

  47. Most of the credit for these ideas went to Bella Dodd, a former schoolteacher who had been active in the Communist Party during the 1930s and became an outspoken anti-Communist during the 1950s. Another frequent speaker on the topic was W. Cleon Skousen, a special agent for the FBI, who claimed that Dodd had been personally involved in efforts to create ‘civilian review boards,’ designed to ‘gain control of the police and paralyze them when riots and violence were instigated.’ W. Cleon Skousen, The Communist Attack on US Police (Cleon Skousen 1966).

  48. H. Norman Moore, ‘The Trend to Render Law Enforcement Ineffective,’ Fire and Police Research Association of Los Angeles Bulletin, speech to the Fourth Area Caucus, American Legion, February 3, 1963, 1, Box 28, Folder: ‘Fire and Police Research Association of Los Angeles Bulletins,’ Knox Mellon Collection of Material about the John Birch Society and other Radical Conservative Organizations and Causes, Box 24, Folder: ‘Various Pamphlets,’ Special Collections, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.

  49. Moore, ‘The Trend to Render Law Enforcement Ineffective,’ 3.

  50. Robert Welch, ‘Bulletin for July 1963,’ The White Book of the John Birch Society for 1963 (Belmont: The John Birch Society, Incorporated), 12.

  51. Welch, ‘Bulletin for July 1963,’ 12–13.

  52. W. Cleon Skousen, speech before American Legion Post 3 and the Committee of 150, Macon, Georgia, November 12, 1965, John Birch Society Sound Recordings Collection, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

  53. Skousen, speech before American Legion Post 3 and the Committee of 150.

  54. Skousen, speech before American Legion Post 3 and the Committee of 1950.

  55. John H. Rousselot interviews Leonard Patterson, Part II, The John Birch Society Report, Transcript 3, March 20, 1966, John Birch Society Sound Recordings Collection, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. As with Skousen’s portrayal of what had happened in Selma, it wasn’t so much the details that were in dispute as the assessment of those details. Patterson did not dispute the fact that the police officer had beaten the boy in 1935; he instead emphasized that the boy was a shoplifter, and that his beating would not have resulted in rioting without Communist political activity.

  56. Julia Brown, I Testify: My Years as an Undercover Agent for the FBI (Boston: Western Islands Publishers 1966), 160–161.

  57. Joseph Crespino, Strom Thurmond’s America (New York: Hill and Wang, 2012), 202–203.

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    Colin Reynolds

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Reynolds, C. Civil rights and ‘civil riots’: anti-colonialism, anti-communism, and the US radical right during the 1960s. J Transatl Stud (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s42738-024-00115-5

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