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Thread: Why were private businesses segregated?

  1. #1

    Why were private businesses segregated?

    I've been following this issue somewhat closely, but I'm sure that many of you have been following it much more closely, and can tell me all the details of this, so, why exactly were some private businesses, private bus companies, private lunch counters, segregated prior to the 64 Civil Rights Act?

    I haven't seen this particular aspect in the forefront of the discussion. Was there segregation because the private businesses were forced to segregate by the government? By local law or state law? The answer of course has something to do with "Jim Crow" laws. But were the Jim Crow laws only about public accommodations (drinking fountains), and were the private businesses (lunch counters) not reached by the Jim Crow laws.

    I have heard others state that the private businesses were segregated because the government forced them to. If that's true, wouldn't the problem have been solved, or mostly solved, by simply stating that the government could not force private businesses either to segregate or not segregate. Rand did make reference to free market solutions, but I'm not clear about businesses being forced to segregate.

    It seems that if it was true that businesses were forced to segregate, we could argument that these problems were caused by government, not by a lack of a federal government law.

    Anybody have any good links about forcing private businesses to segregate?



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  3. #2
    http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/jcrow02.htm

    Well, I found the answer. The reason for segregation was big government racism.

    What should've happened is all of the Jim Crow laws should've been struck down and we should've waited a few years and seen what was up.

    It appears that Rand is strongly against Big Government Racism.

    If Rand wished to, he could read a couple Jim Crow laws, say that he's against them, and mention, over and over, that government was forcing segregation.

    "If I may, Rachel, I'd like to read to you a couple of Jim Crow laws. Here's a Georgia law which was passed in ??? and signed by Governor ???, who was a Democrat.

    "All persons licensed to conduct a restaurant, shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room or serve the two races anywhere under the same license. Georgia"

    So, in Georgia, Democrats, Big Government Racists, passed a law forcing private businesses to go through considerable expense and limitations on their freedom, their private property rights to forceably keep separate whites and blacks. I, unlike the Democrats who passed that law, am 100% against the government forcing segregation."

    If Rand Paul wants to continue to talk about this issue, he might want to not try to argue political philosophy as much, perhaps he might not want to answer certain questions at all. People won't feel at all that Rand is being evasive even if he doesn't answer the question, if he really lets the Democrats have it.

    The lunch counters were segregated by Democrats.

    He also could use "Time Machine" or a "Quantum Leap into Senator Byrd's body in 1964".

    It seems that if it's played extremely well, the MSM, the Dems, could be hammered hard by Paul. Of course, there's no guarantee it would go swimmingly.

  4. #3
    Many Jim Crow laws were imposed on private businesses as well. Some, like the ones related to voting, obviously don't have anything to do with it. If you Google Jim Crow Laws you will see a Wikipedia page on examples of these laws. You will see plenty of examples of what I am talking about.

    With that said, you are going to end up with some businesses doing this voluntarily too, unfortunately.

  5. #4
    Thanks for the info.

    Well, i'm not sure that there will be any "businesses doing this voluntarily too, unfortunately"

    I mean, in theory, that could happen if the 64 Civil Rights Act wasn't passed. But it was passed and businesses cannot do this voluntarily.

    If the laws got completely changed, and businesses were free to do what they wanted, I'd say "good", and then watch closely what happened and what were the consequences of those new actions.

    If there are some single-race businesses here or there, it wouldn't bother me.

    If those businesses had the effect of hurting anybody, that's a much different story. The question would be "what are the effects"?

    But who cares? This is all theory, is there a vote coming up in the House or Senate on this matter? No. Is anyone planning on reinstituting whites only businesses? No.


    Quote Originally Posted by Ilhaguru View Post
    Many Jim Crow laws were imposed on private businesses as well. Some, like the ones related to voting, obviously don't have anything to do with it. If you Google Jim Crow Laws you will see a Wikipedia page on examples of these laws. You will see plenty of examples of what I am talking about.

    With that said, you are going to end up with some businesses doing this voluntarily too, unfortunately.

  6. #5
    It was government's fault - all government had to do was get rid of the Jim Crow laws - but it didn't need to take away free association.

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Epic View Post
    It was government's fault - all government had to do was get rid of the Jim Crow laws - but it didn't need to take away free association.
    I agree. Was this the position that Rand Paul took?

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by parocks View Post
    I agree. Was this the position that Rand Paul took?
    Yes, but people keep lying about his position. The WashingtonPost front page article that my house received said he wanted to repeal the civil rights act(!)

    Also, see this column:

    Republicans in a Kentucky Senate primary cast out a mainstream conservative in favor of Rand Paul, an ideologue so pure he's not sure government-ordered desegregation was such a hot idea
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...052101523.html

    That is a lie - Rand was all for the government-ordered desegregation - that refers to a plan - not enacted - where all the Jim Crows were overturned, but where private business owners' weren't going to be thrown in jail if they didn't serve some people.


    In general, people have a hard time understanding that there's something called free association. It's where things aren't subsidized or banned. It's where discrimination is neither forced nor illegal. It's the middle way. It's freedom.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by parocks View Post
    Thanks for the info.

    Well, i'm not sure that there will be any "businesses doing this voluntarily too, unfortunately"

    I mean, in theory, that could happen if the 64 Civil Rights Act wasn't passed. But it was passed and businesses cannot do this voluntarily.

    If the laws got completely changed, and businesses were free to do what they wanted, I'd say "good", and then watch closely what happened and what were the consequences of those new actions.

    If there are some single-race businesses here or there, it wouldn't bother me.

    If those businesses had the effect of hurting anybody, that's a much different story. The question would be "what are the effects"?

    I think the person you were responding to was saying that you'd have some businesses doing that voluntarily if they could. And the fact is that they can because some businesses still do. I don't know how so many people missed this, but in the Rachel Maddow interview she mentioned Bob Jones University still having an interracial dating ban in 2000. Rand could have slammed Maddow on this point if he had been thinking about it, since that's 34 years post the CRA. The fact is that if you want to discriminate, you still can. You can't have to be a selective business instead of a "public accommodation". So if you want to have an all white swimming pool, make it a "members only" swimming pool (i.e. a country club) and only let white people join. Viola! A segregated business that's past the reach of the CRA. (By the way, this also debunks claims by some Rand supporter that if you open a businesses in your house you automatically have to left anybody in your house.)

    But who cares? This is all theory, is there a vote coming up in the House or Senate on this matter? No. Is anyone planning on reinstituting whites only businesses? No.
    Exactly! Rand was making a philosophical point about whether there were some unintended consequences to the legal theory that Title II of the civil rights act rests on. It's the expansive reading of the Interstate Commerce Clause. That expansive reading came in response to FDR's socialist "new deal" in order to give the federal government control over farmers, minimum wage laws, child labor laws etc. Rand mentioned the ICC when talked to Maddow but she just ignored that. If Rand supporters would educate themselves on the ICC and base their arguments on that then the race issue would drop out completely.
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  11. #9
    You have a link to the "plan - not enacted"?

    It seems like the Democrats don't really care if there are segregated lunch counters, as long as there are only segregated or desegregated lunch counters and it's the Democrats who make that decision.

    Quote Originally Posted by Epic View Post
    Yes, but people keep lying about his position. The WashingtonPost front page article that my house received said he wanted to repeal the civil rights act(!)

    Also, see this column:



    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...052101523.html

    That is a lie - Rand was all for the government-ordered desegregation - that refers to a plan - not enacted - where all the Jim Crows were overturned, but where private business owners' weren't going to be thrown in jail if they didn't serve some people.


    In general, people have a hard time understanding that there's something called free association. It's where things aren't subsidized or banned. It's where discrimination is neither forced nor illegal. It's the middle way. It's freedom.

  12. #10
    About the ICC, I think what you're saying is that the Constitution allows the Feds to regulate Interstate Commerce. And somewhere along the line, the S. Ct. said that "Interstate Commerce" means "anything". Constitutionalists are against the S. Ct. decisions that say that "Interstate Commerce" means "whatever they want". We prefer the original understanding, the original intent, etc., of Interstate Commerce, which has something to do with "Interstate" and "Commerce", not "could possibly have some effect somehow on Interstate Commerce if everyone all of a sudden decided to do what the defendent was doing"

    That's what you mean, right? We'll, I agree with you to some degree, but that's plenty hard to explain. I prefer "no, the Democrats are the racists" - George Wallace, a Democrat, was Governor of Alabama when ...

    The Democrats always want Big Government. They always want to tell businesses what to do. Back in the 50's, they said businesses must not seat different races together. Then, they said businesses must seat different races together. Never in their minds did they think that they shouldn't be the ones making that decision.

    The Democrats went from forcing businesses to do one thing to forcing those same businesses to do the exact opposite. Doesn't the question "are we really good at this telling businesses what to do stuff seeing that we're now forcing businesses to do today the exact opposite thing of what we were forcing them to do yesterday" ever enter Democrats minds?


    Quote Originally Posted by jmdrake View Post
    I think the person you were responding to was saying that you'd have some businesses doing that voluntarily if they could. And the fact is that they can because some businesses still do. I don't know how so many people missed this, but in the Rachel Maddow interview she mentioned Bob Jones University still having an interracial dating ban in 2000. Rand could have slammed Maddow on this point if he had been thinking about it, since that's 34 years post the CRA. The fact is that if you want to discriminate, you still can. You can't have to be a selective business instead of a "public accommodation". So if you want to have an all white swimming pool, make it a "members only" swimming pool (i.e. a country club) and only let white people join. Viola! A segregated business that's past the reach of the CRA. (By the way, this also debunks claims by some Rand supporter that if you open a businesses in your house you automatically have to left anybody in your house.)



    Exactly! Rand was making a philosophical point about whether there were some unintended consequences to the legal theory that Title II of the civil rights act rests on. It's the expansive reading of the Interstate Commerce Clause. That expansive reading came in response to FDR's socialist "new deal" in order to give the federal government control over farmers, minimum wage laws, child labor laws etc. Rand mentioned the ICC when talked to Maddow but she just ignored that. If Rand supporters would educate themselves on the ICC and base their arguments on that then the race issue would drop out completely.

  13. #11
    If you're a business owner isn't it usually a safe bet to conduct business the way the government does in order to avoid lawsuits and lawbreaking (although government agencies do get away with some seriously criminal acts). If you segregate like the government does then you're just being a good little conformist. As parocks already noted though, private businesses were already being forced to segregate before they were forced to integrate.
    "My pride in my country is inversely proportional to Michelle Obama's pride in her country."
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