Tea Party Pick in Hot Water Over Comments on Civil Rights

Two days after his upset victory in the Kentucky Senate primary, Rand Paul, a favorite of the Tea Party movement, is in hot water for his criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

During an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Paul was asked whether he supported the seminal civil rights legislation:

MADDOW: In terms of legal remedies for persistent discrimination, though, if there was a private business, say, in Louisville, say, somewhere in your home state, that wanted to not serve black patrons and wanted to not serve gay patrons, or somebody else on the basis of their -- on the basis of a characteristic that they decided they didn’t like as a private business owner -- would you think they had a legal right to do so, to put up a “blacks not served here” sign?

PAUL: Well, the interesting thing is, you know, you look back to the 1950s and 1960s at the problems we faced. There were incredible problems. You know, the problems had to do with mostly voting, they had to do with schools, they had to do with public housing. And so, this is what the civil rights largely addressed, and all things that I largely agree with.

MADDOW: But what about private businesses? I mean, I hate to -- I don`t want to be badgering you on this, but I do want an answer.

PAUL: I’m not -- I’m not --

MADDOW: Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don’t serve black people?

PAUL: Yes. I’m not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race.

Paul then dug himself into a deeper hole.

MADDOW: And should Woolworth lunch counter should have been allowed to stay segregated? Sir, just yes or no.

PAUL: What I think would happen -- what I’m saying is, is that I don’t believe in any discrimination. I don’t believe in any private property should discriminate either. And I wouldn’t attend, wouldn’t support, wouldn’t go to.

But what you have to answer when you answer this point of view, which is an abstract, obscure conversation from 1964 that you want to bring up. But if you want to answer, you have to say then that you decide the rules for all restaurants and then you decide that you want to allow them to carry weapons into restaurants.

Paul now says he supports the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

For the past two days, I participated in a charrette on education reform on the campus of North Carolina A&T State University. It was from here on Feb. 1, 1960, four students launched the lunch counter sit-ins at F.W. Woolworth in downtown Greensboro.

The old Woolworth building is now the home of the International Civil Rights Museum and Center. 

Among the museum’s many exhibits are the original portion of the lunch counter and stools where the students sat.

Paul’s racial gaffe brings to mind a son of the South, William Faulkner, who famously observed, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Fifty years after the nonviolent protests that catalyzed the civil rights movement, Paul thinks the role of the federal government in desegregating private businesses is “still a valid discussion.”