Black Power, Soft Power: Floyd McKissick, Soul City, and the Death of Moderate Black Republicanism

Abstract

For a long time, we too have been talking about ... enlisting private enterprise in the solution of our great social problems, about profi ts as the great motive power of our fantastically productive economy. What many of the black militants now are saying, in eff ect, is this: We believe you, and now we want a chance to apply those same principles in our own communities. Our reply should not be to reject this request, but to seize upon it—and to respond to it. —Richard Nixon on Black Enterprise, “Bridges to Human Dignity: A Nationwide Radio Address,” April 25, 1968