To commemorate Black History Month, I thought it might be worthwhile to revisit a few items from National Review, a prominent conservative journal some of you may have heard of or be familiar with, regarding issues such as integration and racial equality.
National Review began publication in 1956. From the beginning one of their major issues was opposition to the civil rights movement and criticism of its leaders and supporters.
Here, for instance, is an excerpt from a 2-page article featured in their January 31, 1959, issue about a speech by Martin Luther King:
The Yale Undergraduate Lecture Committee invited Dr. King to succeed Walter Reuther on its 1958-1959 program with an address in the University’s 2,000-seat Woolsey Hall. One seat, Wednesday a week ago, was occupied by me — under orders.
The soberly-dressed, “clerky” little man who followed his host to the rostrum in Woolsey Hall at exactly 7:30 pm seemed oddly unsuited to his unmentioned but implicit role of propagandist. He was self-assured, but totally unassuming; courteous without a trace of cordiality.
Let me say at once, for the benefit of the wicked, fearful South, that Martin Luther King will never rouse a rabble; in fact, I doubt very much whether he could keep a rabble awake, if it were past its bedtime. His lecture, which he read from beginning to end, was couched in prose that can only be called maroon, but it was delibered with all the force and fervor of the five-year-old who nightly recites: “Our Father, Who art in New Haven, Harold be thy name.”
I don’t think National Review has ever reprinted this article.