Civil Rights Berg, Manfred. Black

Civil Rights

Berg, Manfred. Black civil rights and liberal anticommunism: The NAACP in the early cold war. The Journal of American History 94(1). June 2007.

In "Black Civil Rights and Liberal Anticommunism," Berg argues that the NAACP made strategic political alliances and maneuvers to ensure its survival during the Cold War. Those alliances meant strengthening the organization's ties to mainstream "liberal anticommunism," and distancing itself from the communist party and its known sympathizers. Doing so did not, Berg argues, turn the NAACP into a tool of McCarthyism. The NAACP did not support witch-hunts and did not purge its ranks, even if it did allow a serious rift to develop within the organization.

Although its political maneuvering can be viewed as crucial to the survival of the organization, the NAACP "retarded the struggle for racial justice and narrowed the political options of the civil rights movement," (Berg 96). One of the ways the NAACP "retarded the struggle for racial justice" was to permit issues of race relations to become back-burner issues as opposed to critical ones. Another way the NAACP agreed to a half-hearted remedy to racial disparity in the United States was by aligning itself with political centrism instead of with more radical left-leaning politicians. W.E.B DuBois became the emblem of the NAACP's struggle to maintain legitimacy. DuBois, one of the founders of the organization, urged for a more comprehensive, global, and radical agenda. His political opponents in the NAACP disagreed and gradually pushed DuBois out of the leadership circle.

Berg uses primary and secondary sources to prove his argument. The secondary sources are sometimes weak or biased, such as using biographical material about W.E.B DuBois or information written by other historians. Berg adds credibility to his argument by including primary sources. For example, the author uses documentary evidence such as text from Truman's speech to NAACP in 1947; the Oct 1947 Appeal to the World statement to the United nations Committee on Human Rights, historical facts such as the founding of committees, and the issuance of To Secure These Rights. Berg synthesizes these various sources of information and comes up with a balanced perspective of the role of the NAACP during the Cold War, and the impact of the Cold War on the Civil Rights movement.

The first main argument of "Black Civil Rights and Liberal Anticommunism" is that racism became a foreign policy issue. Racism was an embarrassment to the United States, a sign of possible hypocrisy. As the United States purported to be the world's bastion of freedom and liberty, the country had to eliminate racism within its own territories. The national policy had been deplorably weak on matters related to race. Before World War Two, the NAACP enjoyed a relatively cohesive socially liberal stance that focused on race-based oppression. The Cold War forced the NAACP to rethink its political agenda. After World War Two, membership in the NAACP skyrocketed because of the attention given to global oppression. However, the NAACP became a tool for the federal government, as if the organization proved that Civil Rights was a reality in the United States.

The second point that Berg makes is that the NAACP and the communist party in the United States were not born bedfellows. The NAACP focused almost exclusively on race even though class and race were linked issues. The main reason why the NAACP did not align itself with the mainstream labor movement was that big labor was besieged by "notorious racism" (78). As a result, the NAACP downplayed class conflict and played up race relations. Alliances with some labor organizations like the CIO helped boost awareness of the link between class and racial oppression. Pre-World War Two NAACP was more socialist in tone than the post-World War Two NAACP. W.E.B. DuBois noted the connection between oppression of African-Americans and the oppression of all workers worldwide. This extension of the Civil Rights agenda did not last long, especially after the Cold War and the red scare demanded a different approach from the NAACP.

Berg's third main argument in "Black Civil Rights and Liberal Anticommunism" is that the Cold War created an ideological rift within the NAACP; this ideological rift damaged the organization's effectiveness even though it prevented the group from being targeted by McCarthyists. The decision to champion the liberal anticommunist cause was a strategic one. NAACP leaders like Walter White saw the potential in wooing centrists like Harry Truman. White and his supporters believed that the NAACP would play its cards better by focusing exclusively on domestic rather than international oppression. W.E.B. DuBois disagreed, noting in Appeal to the World that the federal government had done little to help remedy the effects of slavery and continued racism. As a delegate to the United Nations, DuBois tried to make racism in America a cause for international concern. DuBois wanted to link domestic with international instances of oppression. DuBois's opponents viewed this approach as dangerous. By critiquing the American government, DuBois was weakening the position of the United States vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. DuBois became marginalized. White succeeded in ousting DuBois from the NAACP and pursing a political alliance with the Truman administration. The Truman administration had expressed sympathy with the NAACP, but that support was only tacit and had not practical merits.