‘While historians have properly acknowledged the contributions of clergymen and grassroots activists” to the civil-rights movement, write David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, “they have too often neglected those made by entrepreneurs and black professionals.” The Beitos’ new book — Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power – begins to set the record straight. David is a professor at the University of Alabama and Linda is an associate professor at Stillman College. David recently took questions from NRO’s John J. Miller.

JOHN J. MILLER: Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard was a black Republican civil-rights leader — was he also in any meaningful sense a conservative? DAVID T. BEITO: Howard was highly pragmatic but he clearly had many conservative beliefs. While he was not afraid to confront segregation head-on, he rejected socialism, communism, and governmental utopian schemes. The civil-rights organization he headed, the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), prohibited Communists from joining, and he once said that he wished that “one bomb could be fashioned that would blow every Communist in America right back to Russia where they belong.” Pointing to the failure of the Soviet Union to exploit civil-rights grievances in the United States, he said that blacks were “not interested in any ‘Isms’ but Americanism.” After he joined the Republican party in 1956, someone asked him how he could associate with “people like Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy.” Howard’s answer was priceless: “I don’t like to but I will,” he said. “I’d far rather side with McCarthy who thinks there’s a Communist under every bed, than with [Democratic] Senator Eastland who thinks there should be a Negro dangling from every rope.” Despite these conservative views, Howard had a distinct libertarian streak on social issues, although his arguments were typically pragmatic. He supported the legalization of prostitution and the right of women to have abortions.

MILLER: How were Howard’s views on civil rights and economics different from those embraced by today’s self-proclaimed civil-rights leaders? BEITO: Howard’s eyes never strayed from the need to build a strong economic foundation through thrift and business ownership. He was a rare example of a leading civil-rights leader who was first and foremost a successful entrepreneur. During the 1940s and 1950s, he also led one of the leading mutual-aid organizations in Mississippi, which provided low-cost and high-quality hospitalization for blacks. Howard’s RCNL combined support for voting rights with an emphasis on the need for ordinary blacks to save and invest. Howard always believed that it was essential for blacks to go into business for themselves. He pushed these goals while he served as chair of the board of directors of the National Negro Business League. His business enterprises included an insurance company, a home-construction firm, and a plantation of more than one thousand acres. He also built the first swimming pool (Olympic-sized) for blacks in Mississippi and even opened a small zoo. As the founder and head of one the largest black hospitals in Mississippi, he often gave his patients not only medical care but seed and tips on the latest business and agricultural techniques.

MILLER: Was Howard a disciple of Booker T. Washington? BEITO: Very much so. He praised Washington as a “towering intellectual genius” and recommended a credo of “talking about Negro business, singing Negro business, preaching Negro business, spending our money with Negro business.” Like Washington, Howard urged emulation of immigrant groups, such as Japanese Americans, who had learned the value of “getting together and pulling together,” and who, despite intense discrimination, had developed a booming business sector and philanthropic institutions such as hospitals. Also like Washington, Howard conceded that some of the failings of black businesses were self-inflicted. He said that he had stopped using one of the “most fashionable” local black-owned barbershops because the “barber insisted on clipping one minute and talking five minutes. We are living in an age of speed and the Negro barber must realize this fact.” Howard called on blacks to make the most of existing conditions and recognize that not every boy was “born to be a preacher, lawyer, or doctor.” He had no patience for those who discounted menial jobs as demeaning instead of giving them proper due. As “long as the American people wear shoes,” he declared, “somebody is going to have to shine them. . . . The Negro boy who shines shoes should shine them so well that every body in the community would want him to shine their shoes.”

MILLER: How important was Howard to the elimination of Jim Crow laws in the South? BEITO: Long before Martin Luther King Jr. came on the scene, Howard played a pioneering role in challenging these laws. In 1951, he launched the Regional Council of Negro Leadership in one of the most hostile places for blacks: the rural Mississippi Delta. The RCNL launched one of the first successful boycotts against discrimination. It urged blacks to boycott white-owned gas stations which refused to provide restrooms for blacks. The RCNL distributed thousands of bumper stickers showing the slogan “Don’t Buy Gas Where You Can’t Use the Restroom.” The campaign was successful and within a few months most white gas stations opened restrooms for blacks. In addition, Howard was critically important as a mentor to future civil-rights leaders. Without Howard, we probably would have never heard of Medgar Evers or Fannie Lou Hamer. Howard gave Evers his first job out of college (selling insurance for Howard’s company) and introduced him to civil-rights activism. Hamer received her initiation in civil rights by attending the annual conferences of the RCNL. In August 1955, Howard played a key role in finding evidence and witnesses after Emmett Till, a black teenager visiting Mississippi, was tortured and murdered by two white brothers. Emmett’s mother stayed in his home during the trial of the killers and he escorted her to the courtroom in an armed caravan. On Nov. 27, 1955, Howard spoke about Emmett Till in Montgomery, Ala. His host was Martin Luther King Jr., then an unknown minister, and Rosa Parks was in attendance. As Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger just four days later, she later said that she was thinking of Emmett Till.

MILLER: You describe Howard as “a classically American ‘man on the make.’” Why? BEITO: His formative years were reminiscent of a Horatio Alger character who rose from poverty through a combination of luck and pluck. But this luck meant nothing without the pluck to put it to good use. Action followed only because he knew how to recognize it and, just as often, create it. Rather than stick to his knitting, he was always in the process of starting a program. His reasons for changing course, and he did it often, varied. Sometimes he had decided that the benefits from the old projects had run dry. Sometimes he was simply restless and wanted to try something new. Added to this was a resourcefulness and ability to bounce back. He could “lose five thousand dollars today,” a friend observed, and “go out and make ten tomorrow. . . . He was a pitchman. He could sell anything and mostly what he sold was himself.”

MILLER: News reports suggest that “Barack” is becoming a popular baby name, especially among blacks. Was “Theodore Roosevelt” a popular name once, or was T. R. M. Howard peculiar in this regard? BEITO: It was fairly common for blacks to name their children after American presidents so Howard, who was born in 1908, was not unique in this regard. According to one account, his father was inspired by a “spirit of patriotism,” and had insisted that their first child be named after President Roosevelt. It proved an apt choice as Howard’s life often mirrored that of his famous namesake. Like TR, Howard was a bundle of energy, showed a commanding presence both on the stump and in private, and was an accomplished big-game hunter.

MILLER: What was Howard’s relationship to Jesse Jackson, and how did they clash over abortion? BEITO: When Jackson was an obscure theology student in Chicago during the 1960s, Howard gave him financial support and encouragement. He introduced him to some of the leading black business and political leaders in Chicago. Jackson’s Operation PUSH was founded in Howard’s home. Howard performed abortions as a doctor in Chicago and, unlike many black leaders at the time, believed that women should have the right to abortions. Jackson was well aware of Howard’s record but still had accepted his money. For this reason, Howard was hopping mad when Jackson gave a speech in 1973 calling for the formation of a right-to-life Committee. “It’s murder no matter what you call it,” Jackson pronounced. “We used to look for death from the man in the blue coat and now it comes in a white coat.” In response, Howard barred the members of Jackson’s PUSH’s finance committee, which he had once chaired, from his house. He said he was “sure that they didn’t want to meet in a murderer’s home and take a murderer’s money.” A close friend of Howard complains that Howard had “bailed Jesse Jackson out of every financial problem he had. . . . So, if he disagreed with him, why . . . didn’t he give it back and say that it was bad money?” She regards Jackson as “a very selfish man.” Coincident with his run for president in 1984, however, Jackson shifted into full reverse and adopted an equally strong pro-choice position.

MILLER: If Howard were alive today, what would he think of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and their ilk? BEITO: That is a tough question but it is quite probable that Howard would have rejected many of their goals and methods. Unlike Jackson and Sharpton, he did not make his living as “a civil-rights activist,” nor did he depend on subsidies from government and big business. He was a resourceful entrepreneur and self-made man who had no time for individuals who refused to take responsibility for their failures. Especially in later years, his first response to any obstacle was to urge blacks to help themselves rather than organize a picket, circulate a petition, or call for a new social program.

MILLER: Your co-author is Linda Royster Beito. Is it tough to write a book with your wife? BEITO: We had several adventures together because of our research. One of the most memorable was that we were invited to lead a private tour of civil-rights sites in the Mississippi Delta, which included actress Ruby Dee. Later we had dinner at Morgan Freeman’s restaurant and spent the night at the actor’s estate near Drew, Mississippi. Upon returning, an agent from the FBI came to interview us about the Emmett Till murder case, which had recently been reopened. He interviewed us because we were the first people to interview both one of Till’s accused killers and a key eyewitness to the crime.

MILLER: Does that make you a husband-and-wife detective team, like in The Thin Man? BEITO: Sometimes, though I can’t hold my liquor like Nick can.