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
Results 1-5 of 20
... particularly timely , appearing in the midst of grow- ing polarization over civil rights and at a time when both liberals and con- servatives are grappling to set a course of action for the post - Reagan years . Changing Course ...
... particularly grateful to Chairman Clarence Thomas and Vice Chairman Ricky Silberman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ( EEOC ) , whose sensitivity and insights into civil rights provided enormous inspiration to me . Special ...
... particularly poor blacks . and the agenda must provide thoughtful and principled solutions . First . we must propose to liberate the free enterprise system to provide the types of entry - level opportunities that have tradi- tionally ...
... particularly distinctive phenomenon noted by Alexis de Tocqueville during his American odyssey in the 1840s . " In America , " he observed , " the lowest classes have conceived a very high notion of political rights , because they ...
... particularly indebted to Chairman Clarence Thomas of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for his insights into the seminal impor- tance of individual rights . 8. Thomas Paine , Dissertation on the First Principles of Government ...
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 |