Changing Course: Civil Rights at the CrossroadsChanging Course traces the rise and fall of the civil rights movement in the United States. It locates the origins of the civil rights vision firmly in the intellectual soil of the American Revolution. This vision carried the day through the abolition of slavery to the triumph of equal opportunity in the 1960s. Throughout, Bolick argues, the efforts of the civil rights movement were rooted in principles of natural law, and anchored in concern for fundamental rights and equality under the law. Bolick explores the movement's sudden abandonment of those principles during the 1960s, and examines the nature and consequences of the revised civil rights agenda during the past two decades. The book is particularly timely, appearing in the midst of growing polarization over civil rights and at a time when both liberals and conservatives are grappling to set a course of action for the post-Reagan years. "Changing Course "identifies clearly real civil rights problems of today as government-erected barriers to entrepreneurial and educational opportunity as well as a vicious cycle of dependency and despair. Bolick outlines a vigorous course of action that would eliminate those barriers based on traditional principles of civil rights. The book provides an intellectual and practical framework for a positive alternative to the agenda of the present-day civil rights establishment. It challenges advocates of individual liberty to reclaim leadership in the quest for civil rights for all. |
From inside the book
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... fundamental rights and equality under the law . Bolick explores the movement's sud- den abandonment of those principles during the 1960s , and examines the nature and consequences of the revised civil rights agenda during the past two ...
... an absolute equality of rights , not only because they viewed all individuals as equal in the eyes of their Creator , but in order to safeguard the underlying fundamental rights : if rights are equal , xi Introduction.
... fundamental rights animated the civil rights movement from the Declaration of Independence . to the abolition of slavery . to the guarantee of equal protection of the laws , to the demise of " Jim Crow " and the repudiation of ...
... fundamental rights or discriminates on the basis of immutable characteristics . This focus has traditionally provided the civil rights movement with its greatest triumphs , and we must restore that emphasis today if we are to regain the ...
... fundamental principles . I believe a good dose of those principles will go far in restoring momentum to a civil rights movement that has been drifting aimlessly for a generation . Twenty years ago , this nation was on the threshold of ...
Contents
5 | |
Abolitionism The Quest for Freedom | 13 |
The Triumph of Opportunity | 31 |
The Quest Abandoned | 53 |
RECHARTING THE COURSE OF CIVIL RIGHTS | 79 |
Introduction to Part II | 81 |
The Failed Agenda | 84 |